Kolkata, November 16, 2005
IANS
The final hearing of a case seeking the highest ever
compensation for medical negligence in India would
begin at the National Consumer Disputes Redressal
Commission (NCDRC) Thursday.
The NCDRC, the highest consumers' forum in India,
would take up the final hearing on a compensation
claim of Rs.777 million by Ohio-based NRI scientist
Kunal Saha for the death of his wife Anuradha from
allegedly faulty treatment by three eminent Kolkata-based
doctors.
While Anuradha had died in May 1998 in the Breach
Candy Hospital of Mumbai, Saha slapped the compensation
suit against Kolkata's AMRI Hospital and five doctors
of the city.
Two of these doctors were previously convicted for
criminal negligence in another case by a Kolkata court,
though the Calcutta High Court later overturned the
conviction.
The case before the NCDRC would be closely watched
by Indian doctors and patients, because it has already
set many precedents.
Under direction from the Supreme Court, testimonies
and cross-examinations of witnesses in this case were
recorded through videoconferencing from the US.
While there have been some judgments in recent years
by consumer courts in the country against errant doctors,
compensation awards usually have not exceeded a few
hundreds of thousands of rupees even for the death
of a patient.
The huge amount of compensation claimed in this case
is based on the young age of the deceased -- Anuradha
died at an age of only 36 -- and is calculated in
dollar terms.
Anuradha, an India-born US citizen, was a child psychologist.
She died from the alleged medical negligence during
a social visit with her husband to Kolkata.
Saha filed a compensation case in 1999 against three
Kolkata doctors -- Sukumar Mukherjee, Abani Roychowdhury
and dermatologist Baidyanath Halder -- and two junior
doctors as well as the AMRI hospital.
Mukherjee is also the personal physician of India's
former cricket captain Sourav Ganguly.
Saha, meanwhile, has submitted
in the court that he would not accept any money, if
and when he wins this legal battle, and the entire
compensation amount would be donated for promotion
of health in India and to People for Better Treatment
(PBT), a charitable organisation he founded after
his wife's death.
Saha has also challenged the Buddhadeb Bhattacharya
government of West Bengal in the Supreme Court for
"shielding doctors accused of medical negligence".
Saha is a noted scientist, leading a team that recently
isolated a new strain of the Human Immunodeficiency
Virus (HIV) which may help test drugs and vaccines
against AIDS on animals.
