Hyderabad: The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Hyderabad, has directed LV Prasad Eye Institute, Banjara Hills to pay Rs 1.98 lakh, including a compensation of Rs 50,000, to the complainant on account of negligence of the hospital staff while shifting the patient from wheel chair to a stool. According to the complainant, the matter dates back to 2015, when Myanan Narayana, a resident of Karimnagar fell while being moved from a wheelchair to a stool by the staff of the hospital and suffered a fracture in the femur bone. A doctor at the eye institute attended to Narayana and gave a referral letter. He went to another hospital and got himself treated while incurring expenses amounting to Rs 1,48,631.
Over this, Narayana alleged deficiency in service on the institute’s part. In its defence, the LV Prasad Eye Institute stated that the complaint is filed with an oblique motive to extract money and that Narayana fell down from the stool after being sloppy and losing his balance for which the opposite party cannot be blamed. It added that a doctor at the Institute immediately referred him to another hospital. However, the Consumer Forum noted that the staff should have taken “extra care” of the 72-year-old man while shifting him from the wheelchair to the stool, particularly after he had cataract surgery due to which there is a strain on the eyes and chance of blurred vision. The requirement of a wheelchair to shift a patient infers that he was not in a position to walk freely, the court added. Merely because the doctor attended Narayana immediately after his fall is not a ground to exonerate the negligence of the staff of the opposite party, the court said. It observed that it is the responsibility of the hospital to look after a patient until they leave the hospital premises after entering. The bench directed the institute to pay Rs 1,48,631 to Narayana along with nine percent per annum interest from date of notice till realisation for the expenditure of the treatment undergone in the other hospital and Rs 50,000 compensation.