A Bangalore-based dentist has been ordered to pay up Rs 1 lakh as compensation to a student by the III Additional Bangalore Urban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum.

Twenty-year-old M A Shilpa had gone to Tarana Dental Clinic in Padmanabhanagar, Bangalore, in June 2006, for treatment of pain in her lower right jaw.

Dr Archana Hegde, (BDS Esth. Dent. (USA) examined her, filled a cavity in her tooth, and gave her some medicine.
Shilpa was doing her post-graduation in economics and business, in an evening college in Bangalore.

False hopes

She had to return to the dentist on 8-9-2006  with her mother, as the pain did not subside. Though her mother requested the dentist not to give Shilpa an injection on her right hand, the dentist gave the injection.

Ten minutes later, Shilpa lost sensation of her right hand. She could not even hold the key of the vehicle on which she had come to the clinic.

The doctor convinced her that she would be fine within an hour. When that didn’t happen, the doctor told Shilpa that she would be fine in a day.

The following morning, Shilpa’s mother informed Dr Hegde that Shilpa’s condition was the same, and the doctor said it would take three days for recovery. The worried parents then approached Dr H S Suresh, a neuro surgeon at the Manasa Superspeciality Clinic on 20-9-2006.

He diagnosed the problem as radial nerve injury due to an intramuscular injection and he suggested that physiotherapy be started for the patient immediately.

Shilpa was then treated by a neurologist named Dr Umashankar, a consultant neurologist at Bhagavan Mahaveer Jain Hospital. He diagnosed her case as one of radial nerve axonopathy and she was advised to use a splint.

Shilpa’s parents asked Dr Hegde to compensate them for the expenses incurred. She refused and they approached the consumer forum.

Minor injury

Dr Hegde told the Forum that Shilpa had a disability on her right hand even before she came to her clinic. In 2004, Shilpa had visited DG Hospital after a fall due to which she had pain and swelling in her right wrist for which she had been given a crepe bandage.

But the court ruled that DG Hospital records itself proved that Shilpa had suffered only a minor injury and this could not be the reason for her present condition. She rode her own vehicle to college.

Compensation

Forum president (Shilpa’s complaint no. 300/2007) N Srivathsa Kedilaya ruled that since medical negligence by the dentist had been established by the complainant, the doctor should compensate Shilpa with a sum of Rs 1 lakh along with costs of Rs 5,000.

If the doctor did not pay up within 30 days from the date of this order (September 20, 2007) she would have to pay interest at 9 per cent per annum from the date of this order till payment, he said.