Thaindian News

Chandigarh, June 18 (IANS) The consumer forum here has directed the Chandigarh administration and a government hospital to pay compensation of Rs.8 lakh to the family of a Kurukshetra resident who died due to negligence of hospital doctors, a forum official said here Saturday.

Holding the Chandigarh administration and Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) guilty of negligence, the district consumer disputes redressal forum has directed the health secretary of Chandigarh and GMCH to pay this amount to the family of the deceased, Hitender Kakkar (25).

According to the complaint filed by Hitender’s parents Geeta Kakkar and Gurwinditta Kakkar, their son was admitted in the burns ward of GMCH in October 2008, with burn injuries that he had sustained due to fire-cracker explosion. Hitender was recovering well but on Nov 8 he was shifted from his bed number 1 to bed number 8 as his bed was allotted to another patient, Praveen Kumar.

“Bed number 8 which was allotted, was not sterilized. We objected to that sudden shifting, but nobody listened to us and the hospital staff did not give us any satisfactory reply,” said Geeta Saturday.

“Praveen Kumar died on the same evening and then our son was again shifted to bed number 1. This time again the bed was not sterilized and the condition of our son started deteriorating and he died. He had contracted infection due to the negligence of hospital staff,” she said.

Besides, the forum has also directed the administration and GMCH to pay Rs.10,000 to the complainants as the cost of litigation.

In the argument, counsel for GMCH had maintained that the hospital staff was not negligent and utmost care was taken while treating the patient.