Mumbai, July 06: A surgeon has been punished for medical negligence nearly 24 years after he committed the mistake.
A metropolitan magistrate condemned the 80-year-old Dr. Prafulla Desai, head surgeon and a Padma Vibhushan receiver, of medical carelessness while treating a female with terminal stomach cancer.
The magistrate sentenced Desai to go through simple custody till the rising of the court and asked him to make a payment of Rs 50,000 as fine to her hubby and complainant, retired IAS officer Dr. PC Singhi.
Desai is attached to Bombay Hospital and Breach Candy.
“I am happy that my fight has finally succeeded. It will send a good message to the whole medical community,” the 84-year-old.
But, according to him, the jail sentence meant nothing.
Singhi stated that Dr. Desai decided to carry out a surgical operation on his sick wife in December 1987, although Dr. Earnest Greenberg, a cancer expert at Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital, New York, had advised not to conduct any surgery.
Singhi also said that Dr. Desai shrank from duty when he discovered Leela’s stomach inoperable and she died during February, 1989.
On September 7, 1988 her hubby forwarded a written grievance to the director general of police.
But, the Azad Maidan police filed an FIR on May 14, 1991 after the Maharashtra medical council reprimanded Dr. Desai for breaching medical values.
Singhi lodged a suit looking for a compensation of Rs 25 lakh for Dr. Desai’s so-called carelessness.
The case introduced video conferencing in the Indian judicial system. Dr Greenberg’s statement was recorded making use of video link from New York.