HC: Doc to pay ₹1L for ‘wrong surgery’
NEW DELHI: A city doctor — who had been implicated by Delhi Medical Council for operating on the wrong foot of 24-year old Ravi Rai — has been asked by the Delhi High Court to pay Rs 1 lakh for the corrective surgery that Rai had to undergo at another hospital.
The court also ordered fresh hearings by the Medical Council of India (MCI) which had let doctor Ashwani Maichand off as he was not present in the operation theatre on the day of the surgery.
“The MCI was wrong in exonerating Dr Maichand. Doctor Maichand was a senior doctor, under whose care and supervision, Rai had been admitted,” the court in its August order said. The court’s order was later challenged by Maichand in front of a division bench that dismissed the plea. The patient, Rai, had been admitted to a private hospital in 2016 after falling from the stairs.
He had sustained a comminuted fracture or multiple breaks on his right leg and needed a surgery.
He was never informed of a fracture in the spinal cord and even made to do physiotherapy for the other leg with a hairline fracture, instead of being recommended bed rest.
In the operating theatre, the DMC committee found that the anaesthesiologist was not informed about the spine fracture and was given spinal anaesthesia, which is not recommended.
After the surgery, the family discovered that the screws had been put in the left foot instead of the right one. They also discovered that the surgery was performed by another surgeon and not Dr Maichand. No consent for the surgery on the other foot or change of surgeon was taken. On enquiry by the DMC, the doctors said they operated on the left foot as the right one was too swollen. The committee found that the fracture in the left leg would have healed without surgery.
“I was not on the premises of the hospital at the time of the surgery. About the surgery on the left foot, there are differences of opinion; some would operate, some would not. We chose to operate. The patient is healthy and is able to walk normally. Why are the doctors being maligned?” said Dr Ashwini Maichand.