Failure to fix dislocated elbow costs doctor dearly after 13 years

A doctor's failure to fix the dislocated elbow of a child 13 years ago has proved costly for him with the National Consumer Commission holding him guilty of committing medical negligence and ordering him to pay a compensation of Rs50,000 to the boy.
    
The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission imposed the cost on the doctor, endorsing concurrent findings of the Gaya District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum and Bihar State Consumer Commission, Patna.
    
The incident dates back to February 9, 1998, when 13-year-old Amit Kumar, a resident of Jehanabad in Bihar, fell while riding his bicycle and developed swelling and pain in his elbow.
    
His father Binay Kumar took him to Dr Ravinder Kumar, an orthopaedic surgeon in the nearest major town of Gaya, for treatment and deposited a sum of Rs1,000 as fee and other charges with the doctor.
    
A subsequent X-ray taken at Dr Kumar's clinic on the same day showed dislocation of left elbow, which, the NCDRC found, the doctor put in a cast without properly setting it as per procedures prescribed in the medical science.
    
When the X-ray of the affected elbow was taken nearly two months later on April 11, 1998, it was found that Amit continued to have a dislocated elbow.    

The doctor sought to explain the findings of the second X-ray, claiming that the boy fell again sometime after February 9 and damaged the same elbow in an exactly identical manner which then showed up in the subsequent X-ray.
    
The NCDRC bench of Anupam Dasgupta dismissed the doctor's argument pointing out that the boy's elbow had not been X-rayed immediately after completion of the procedure on February 9 to show that it was done appropriately.
    
"In fact, it is also a standard medical procedure to take an X-ray subsequent to such a procedure to see if the reduction had been done properly or something was still not right," it said.