Patient compensated for negligence

KATHMANDU, Feb 2: A girl has received compensation from a doctor and nursing home 12 years after a wrongly prescribed medicine for epilepsy ruined her life.

Srijana KC received a check worth Rs 617,119 at the Kathmandu District Administration Office in the presence of Chief District Officer (CDO) Laxmi Prasad Dhakal and advocate Rama Panta Kharel of Pro Public, who fought KC´s case, Tuesday afternoon. Blue Cross Nursing Home had submitted the check to the Kathmandu District Administration Office Monday.

“I am relieved to have finally received the compensation,” KC told Republica. “I am happy that I will not have to make rounds of court as I have been doing for over a decade and there would be no more humiliation during the hearings,” an emotional KC said. “The case was not just about the money but a matter of justice for me and I hope it will lead to more victims getting compensation in the future,” she stated and thanked Pro Public and the media for supporting her all the while.

The Supreme Court in a landmark decision on November 15, 2009 had upheld the Patan Appellate Court´s verdict of September, 2006 asking Dr Dinesh Bikram Shah and Blue Cross Nursing Home to pay the amount to compensate KC. The nursing home had not paid the amount even after its bid for review of the Supreme Court decision failed over six months ago. “We had written to the District Administration Office (DAO) demanding implementation of the Supreme Court´s verdict and the DAO had assured us to even use force to get it implemented,” advocate Kharel explained the background of the payment.

The case first filed with the DAO on August 8, 1999, Kharel revealed, was the first to be filed under the Consumer Act that came into effect from April 14, 1998. “The landmark Supreme Court verdict on November 15, 2009 was the first case of compensation awarded to a consumer and KC today became the first consumer to be compensated,” Kharel said.

KC, now 24, was taken to the Nepal Eye Hospital at Tripureshwar by her mother Sarita in September 1998 with a normal ailment in left eye. Dr OK Malla treated her eye and further referred her to neurologist Dr Shah at the Blue Cross Nursing Home believing that her eye ailment may also be due to some problems with head.

DR Shah first said that she had eggs of worms in her brain and prescribed medication for a month. And then he prescribed 60 tablets of tegretol, a medicine for epilepsy, to be taken twice a day for a month on December 16, 1998.

After seven days, she had some rashes and started to put on weight. Instead of being alerted by reactions, Dr Shah said that it was sign that the medicine was starting to work when she was taken to him. The rashes slowly disappeared but on the 27th day, she suddenly had problem in her throat in the evening. Both her eyes were shut and she developed ulcers inside her mouth and watery lesions all over her body.

As her condition became critical, she had to be rushed to Kanti Children´s Hospital at six in the morning. The doctors diagnosed it as Steven Johnson Syndrome triggered by reaction of carbamazepine, the active ingredient of tegretol. She was saved following two months of treatment at Kanti but the healthy, sprightly, fair and beautiful girl of yore is now blind by her left eye following the reaction and her left ear doesn´t function properly. She has problem with lungs and respiratory system, suffers from allergies all over the body and the glowing beautiful face looks a thing of distant past.

She had first won a compensation of Rs 117,119.94, to be paid equally by Dr Shah and Blue Cross, on December 18, 2004 from the Compensation Committee of Kathmandu Administration Office. The Patan Appellate Court then ordered the doctor and nursing home to pay Rs 500,000 more in September 2006 following appeals filed by her family for more compensation and by the doctor and nursing home saying they were not liable. The doctor and nursing home had then moved the Supreme Court appealing against the appellate court´s decision.

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