AIIMS directed to pay Rs 1 lakh for botched-up eye treatment

NEW DELHI: A consumer forum directed All India Institute of Medical Sciences to pay Rs 1 lakh to the parents of a girl child for alleged negligence in carrying out corneal transplantation.

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South Delhi District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum bench presided by justice NK Goel asked the hospital to pay the money to the parents of Haryana resident Priyanka, noting that three corneal graftings in her left eye failed consecutively as they were done “without proper care and caution”.

“The three consecutive failures… establishes that corneal graftings were not done with proper care and caution as was expected from medical experts and certainly failure was the result of negligence on the part of doctors,” the forum said.

The bench also noted that the procedure on all three occasions was done by junior/trainee/new doctors and it failed.

According to the complaint, Priyanka had suffered a knife injury in her left eye. A doctor in Patiala operated on her in April 1998. When she did not get any relief, she was taken to AIIMS for treatment in October 1998. The three graftings were done in her injured eye between 1998 and 2001, it said. It said the girl lost sight in her left eye after the third procedure. Thereafter, she was advised a fourth corneal grafting in June 2005 at AIIMS, it added.

AIIMS, however, had denied the allegations.