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  • NRI, Dr. Saha said, "entire compensation amount of Rs.777 million would be donated for promotion of health in India'

    Highest medical negligence compensation case coming up Thursday


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.

 


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NRI, Dr. Saha filed three cases against the doctors, who were responsible for his wife’s death

Kunal Saha, M.D., Ph.D.
Asst Professor
College of Medicine and Public Health
Pediatrics - Molecular Medicine
Children's Hospital Research

  • Compensation claim of Rs.777 million
  • Entire compensation amount would be donated for promotion of health in India