Amaravati: In a significant development, the Andhra Pradesh Consumer Commission, has asked the doctors at the Queen's NRI Hospital in Visakhapatnam to pay Rs 40 lakh compensation to the family of a youth who died at the hospital in 2013 allegedly due to the medical negligence. The AP Consumer Commission has found General Surgeon Dr. TS Prasad, Anesthetists Dr. Tanuja Rajyalakshmi Devi, and Dr. Ravichandra Haas at Queen's NRI Hospital guilty and directed them to pay the compensation to the deceased's family.
The case dates back to October 2013. A youth named Sheela Tulasiram (26) from Visakha went to Queen's Hospital for treatment on October 8, 2013, with stomach pain where the doctors said that he was suffering from Colicky pain and the surgery was performed at 9 pm the same day. Later, the young man fell unconscious and was kept in the ICU.
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The hospital staff also refused to show the records of the case with the family raising suspicion. The young man died on the 12th of October. The relatives alleged medical negligence and argued with the hospital staff that Tulasiram had no serious complications. The family approached the Consumer Commission in 2015 and demanded that the owner of the hospital and the doctors should pay Rs. 99,99,000 as compensation.
In the judgment issued by the commission, it was stated that Dr. Tanuja admitted that the treatment details were not mentioned in the records which pointed to medical malpractice. Pertinently, the AP Medical Council, which investigated the case, also removed Dr. Tanuja's name from the medical register for six months.
At the request of the deceased's parents, a team of KGH doctors investigated the incident through the Human Rights Commission and stated that there was mismanagement in the medical services and negligence of anesthetists. The council's findings were also taken into consideration by the commission.
