Delhi: Patient loses vision, doctor told to pay Rs 19 lakh

New Delhi: The Delhi State Consumer Commission has asked a private hospital and its doctor to pay Rs 19 lakh to a patient who lost vision after a surgery.

Holding them guilty of medical negligence, the commission also asked the eye hospital to deposit Rs 20 lakh with the Consumer Welfare Fund maintained by the commission.

Taking a stern view of the connivance of the hospital in the posh Greater Kailash area of South Delhi, with the accused doctor to escape legal action, it asked the Medical Council of India to initiate an inquiry against him and the hospital for deficient service.

“The hospital is hand-in-glove with the doctor and concealed the surgery notes from the complainant as well from this court. The hospital again has been deficient in its services,” the commission, headed by judicial member N.P. Kaushik, said.

“The doctor and the hospital are not only guilty of deficiency in service, but also guilty of fabricating records to wriggle out of the clutches of law,” it observed.

The commission asked Sharad Lakhotia, the guilty doctor, to compensate the victim, Prakash Sharma, a gynaecologist by profession, who underwent a cataract surgery in 1998 after which she gradually lost vision in her left eye, noting it affected her medical career.

Dr Lakhotia, however, denied any wrongdoing on his part and claimed that the patient had suffered the injury in her eye due to a fall at her house.