A consumer forum in Warangal district of Telangana state had ruled against a senior Ayurvedica doctor for his medical negligence that caused the death of a 55 year old woman due to adverse drug reaction and had penalised him to pay Rs. 3.96 lakh for medical negligence, Rs. 50,000 as compensation to the victim’s family and Rs. 25,000 towards medical costs incurred for the patient.

According to reports, a senior ayurvedic doctor named Dr. A. Kishan had treated a 55 year old woman named Ameena Bee suffering from fever, cough and headache in the year 2010.  However, after consuming the medicines prescribed by the doctor, the patient’s condition became all the more worse and her relatives once again brought Ameena Bee to the same hospital 3 days later, where she was administered two injections by the doctor.

On the same day, the patient’s condition further began to deteriorate and she gradually lost control of her speech and fainted and later her tongue began to bulge. After observing the symptoms, the relatives of the patients rushed her to same hospital where she was injected medicines earlier. The doctor at the clinic again administered one more injection, which led to the death of the patient on the spot.

A post-mortem was conducted and the report clearly revealed that the cause of the death was due to Anaphylactic Shock which means death due to a drug reaction caused by the administration of an injection. Taking this as a base, the forum conducted detailed enquiry on the case and sought the explanation of the doctor. The doctor had contended that the deceased Ameena Bee was suffering from an acute heart problem, high cholesterol and high blood pressure and that he had advised the patient’s relatives to immediately shift her to the Mahatma Gandhi Medical Hospital (MGM) in Warangal. He also contended that on the day of her death, her relatives had also called for an ambulance to shift her to MGM for better treatment, but by the time the Ambulance arrived, Ameena Bee was already dead and he could not be blamed for it.

The doctor even went on to argue that he had not administered any injection to the patient. However, the consumer forum members after carefully studying the post-mortem report revealed that there were indeed needle marks on the left arm of the deceased patient and came to a conclusion that it was a clear case of medical negligence and due to adoption of unfair trade practice by the doctor. “The Ayurvedic doctor was adopting unfair medical practise and had injected allopathic drugs into the patient without even carrying out the medical diagnostic tests, which lead to serious drug reactions on the patient that caused death,” revealed the consumer forum members.

As the forum members clearly found that the patient’s condition deteriorated only after consuming the prescribed medicines by the doctor and upon further enquiring it was also revealed that the doctor treating the patient was an Ayurvedic physician and not certified to give allopathic treatment. Thus the forum had decided to penalise the doctor to pay a total compensation of Rs. 4.21 to the family of deceased.