TIRUCHY: In perhaps the first case of medical practitioners being held guilty of negligence in the State, three persons, including two doctors, were sentenced to one-year imprisonment in a case where 66 people lost their vision after a botched cataract surgery.
Seven persons were named as accused in the case. Chief Judicial Magistrate M Sridhar also ordered the hospital to pay compensation ranging from `2.28 lakh to `5.17 lakh to all the victims based on their age. Since the victims have already been given `1 lakh, the remaining amount should be given with 7.5 per cent interest from the date of the operation, the judge said. The compensation was fixed according to the Workmen’s Compensation Act.
“This is the first of its kind case in Tamil Nadu where two doctors have been convicted after judicial trial,” MKP Kannan, special public prosecutor for CBI, told the media.
The incident occurred on July 20, 2008, and it was alleged that administration of contaminated eyedrops during the procedure was the cause of vision loss.
Out of 66 victims, 10 residents of Chitheri, Nainarpalayam and Kadavanur in Villupuram district have since died and one person has been reported missing. The CJM convicted Dr Nelson Jesudasan, director of Joseph Eye Hospital, Tiruchy, Dr P Ashok, chief medical officer in the hospital’s Perambalur unit and Christopher Thomas, chief administrative officer, for culpable negligence and endangering the personal liberty of patients and voluntarily causing hurt.
Surgeons Avvai, M Sowjanya and Thendral Ponnudurai were acquitted for lack of proof. Besides warning the acquitted doctors, the CJM directed the Medical Council of India to initiate disciplinary action against them. Lab assistant T Androse, the seventh accused, was also acquitted.