HYDERABAD: The District Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, Nizamabad, has ordered a diagnostic centre to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation for wrongfully diagnosing a woman as HIV positive and causing mental agony to her and her family. The incorrect test report had led her husband, who lives in Dubai, to question her character, and tainted her reputation.
The 26-year-old woman from Nizamabad district was admitted to a hospital with abdominal pain on November 3, 2013. Three days later, a doctor told her that she needed surgery, for which her blood reports were required. The woman took a blood test at M/s Akhila Diagnostics in Kamareddy town but was shell-shocked when the results returned HIV positive.
On the advice of her friends and neighbours, the woman got tested at two different diagotic centres, including AP State AIDS Control Society, and her reports returned negative for HIV. But, the damage was done by then as people in her locality started speaking ill of her. "Due to the false report, her reputation in the society has been ruined," the family said.
Terming it as medical negligence, which caused mental agony to the woman and her family, the Commission ordered the diagnostic centre to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation within a month.
In another case, the Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum has directed ICICI Lombard General Insurance to pay a compensation of Rs 1.2 lakh to a consumer for not honouring claim amount and causing him mental agony. Ravinder Singh, a resident of Hyderabad, had bought a one-year insurance policy for his Mahindra XUV in August 2017. When his car got damaged in an accident in Goa, the company refused to sanction the claim amount. After verifying the merits of the case, the Commission directed the firm to pay the compensation.