CHANDIGARH, Nov 1: The UT Consumer Disputes' Redressal Commission has directed the Post-Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research to pay a sum of Rs 2 lakh to Jaswinder Singh (6 years), through his father/guardian, for wrongly conducting an eye operation on the 6-year-old patient.Holding the PGI and a senior resident Dr Neeraj Sud guilty of negligence while conducting the operation on the child, whose left eye had a physical deformity and appeared smaller than the right one, the Commission has ordered that the compensation would be paid to the father/guardian of the child within four months.The commission has also directed that of the total compensation to be paid, a sum of Rs 50,000 would be recovered from Dr Neeraj Sud, who conducted the operation on the patient. The Commission has also directed the PGI to pay costs of Rs 5,000 for the case.The patient, Jaswinder Singh had moved the Commission after his operation carried out on June 26, 1996, did not prove successful, despite assurances given to the contrary by senior doctors of the PGI Ophthalmology department. The patient complained that instead of improvement in the left eye, the eye deteriorated and the tear glands were affected, after the operation. "Instead of lifting the eye-lid, it further drooped and the eye-ball cornea also moved down resulting in double vision of the patient", the Commission held, adding that "after the operation, the child patient has suffered a serious damage to the tear gland resulting in non-formation of tears requiring use of costly medicine and equipment in the left eye to prevent loss of tear drops put in the eye.After hearing the counsel for both the parties and going through the records, the Commission held that negligence on the part of the operating doctor and the PGI was well established, for which they should pay compensation.
