A division bench of Hon’ble Justice Mr. B.C. Gupta and Dr. S.M. Kantikar in the National Consumer Forum (NCDRC) admitted a major complaint of “medical negligence” and issued show cause notice against a private nursing home “Extent Medical & Surgical Center” in Chandannagar near Kolkata for the wrongful death of Ms. Sanchita Khan, US-trained IT specialist and only 32-year old daughter of a ENT specialist, Dr. Manik Chandra Khan. Sanchita died following treatment by one Dr. Amit Saha (owner of the Extent nursing home) after suffering from a simple cough and fever for only 4 days. Ironically, Dr. Saha was found to be practicing with a fake M.D. degree in medicine as he claimed himself to be a “critical care specialist” even though he was found to have only post-graduate (M.D.) degree in Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM).
PBT president, Dr. Kunal Saha, appeared on behalf of Dr. Khan and argued that the treatment provided to the victim was abysmal as no attempt was made to correct the obvious medical problems like anemia and hypoxia as the patient was left virtually unattended to die after only 4 days. A claim of Rs. 3.95 crore compensation has been made in this complaint in view of the young age and high status of the victim as well as the unethical conduct of the accused doctor and hospital.
PBT president also successfully argued before the same bench the case of a second victim of alleged medical negligence in which a 62-year old lady, who was suffering from a heart attack, was refused admission at an ESI Hospital in Kolkata. The patient died within 15 hours without treatment after she was taken back home. In this case, MCI has already found the accused doctor, Darpanarayan Datta, guilty for medical negligence and directed the West Bengal Medical Council (WBMC) to cancel his medical license for a period of 1 year. Unfortunately, WBMC still refused to abide by the MCI’s order and did not take any measure to cancel license of Dr. Datta. A compensation of Rs. 1.05 crore has been claimed in this matter. Both matters will come up for further hearing in November. Over the past more than one month since Dr. Saha came from USA, he has been appearing for different victims of medical negligence (on behalf of PBT) in consumer courts across India without ever taking any money from any of the victims only to help them find medical justice.
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