MADURAI: The Madurai District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum recently ordered a private dental clinic to pay a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the spouse of a person, who died due to medical negligence after the people in the clinic wrongly extracted his tooth without performing any test.
Petchiammal alias Baby of Viswanathapuram of Madurai city, in a petition, said her husband Suresh alias Swarna suffered toothache and was taken to the private clinic in Munichalai Road on December 24, 2017. The clinic without conducting any medical test, extracted his tooth. He subsequently got tired and then collapsed. The people at the clinic immediately took him to another private hospital. Later he was shifted to Government Rajaji Hospital, where the doctors declared him dead. She claimed in the petition that the clinic was responsible for her spouse's death.
The forum, chaired by its president N Pari, and members KA Vimala and K Velumani, while passing the order said the postmortem report said the death was due to extraction of the tooth. The dentist who performed the extraction had only secured his license on February 23, 2017. The management of the clinic failed to prove that they performed every necessary procedure before extracting the tooth. Hence, the forum found the clinic responsible for the death and ordered the management to pay Rs 10 lakh compensation to Petchiammal within three months. In case of failure in paying the compensation on time, the clinic has to pay the amount with 9% annual interest.