New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday awarded a record payout of Rs 5.96 crore for medical negligence to a campaigning US-based doctor in a landmark case. Kunal Saha, a doctor of Indian origin based in Ohio, travelled to India in 1998 with his 36-year-old wife who died after contracting a rare skin disease which was treated in AMRI hospital in Kolkata. After being awarded a far smaller payout by a consumer dispute commission in 2011, Saha appealed in the Supreme Court seeking greater compensation, leading to Thursday's judgment 15 years after her death.
"Within eight weeks a demand draft should be given to Dr Kunal Sahaand a compliance report filed in the Supreme Court," announced Justice Gopal Gowda. The payment of Rs 5.96 crore (970,000 dollars), the highest ever, is to be paid by AMRI Hospital and three doctors, whose liability was fixed at one million rupees. A total of 17 doctors were ordered to stand trial for criminal negligence over the treatment of Saha's wife Anuradha.
Anuradha, a child psychologist and graduate of Columbia University in New York, contracted toxic epidermal necrolysis while in India but was badly diagnosed and given an overdose of steroids. Saha has since turned into a campaigner against medical negligence in India, which has a booming medical tourism industry and sees hundreds of thousands of foreigners come for cheap treatments.
