Dehradun: Hospital asked to pay patient’s kin for botched surgery – ET HealthWorld

DEHRADUN: The district consumer court ordered city-based Bharat Heart Institute to pay Rs 4.4 lakh to the family of now-dead Udham Singh Chauhan (57), where he had operated on in 2013, as well as Rs 71,000 for financial loss, mental harassment and legal cost to his children within 30 days.

When Chauhan underwent his first surgery in 2013, in which stents were placed in his heart, the hospital’s cardiologist, CP Tripathi, had assured in a written document that the patient would be paid for the next surgery should the one done by him be unsuccessful. Months later, Chauhan started having pain and developed complications and visited Tripathi, who, after examining him, said that he would have to undergo another surgery. In July 2014, when Dr Tripathi expressed inability to perform another surgery, saying they have no competent heart surgeon available. He was asked to get it done at another hospital, on the assurance that the first hospital would bear the cost. Chauhan underwent another surgery at a different hospital, where doctors found sub-standard stents had been used on him. Chauhan confronted Tripathi and asked for his money back. The surgeon refused, so he moved to court. Meanwhile, months after his second surgery, Chauhan died and his children took forward the case. Around a decade after the dispute, the court asked the surgeon to compensate the family for the botched operation.