New Delhi, Feb. 8 (PTI): For Dr Ravinder Kumar, a Gaya-based orthopaedic surgeon, it is a strike from Nemesis.

Thirteen years after he failed to fix the elbow of a child, Dr Ravinder has been found guilty of medical negligence and has been asked to compensate his hapless patient.

The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on the doctor, endorsing concurrent findings of the Gaya District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum and Bihar State Consumer Commission, Patna.

The incident dates back to February 9, 1998, when 13-year-old Amit Kumar, a resident of Jehanabad, fell while riding his bicycle and developed swelling and pain in his elbow.

His father Binay Kumar took him to Dr Ravinder in the nearest major town of Gaya. The doctor was paid Rs 1,000 as fees and also other charges.

A subsequent X-ray taken at Dr Ravinder’s clinic on the same day showed dislocation of left elbow, which the doctor put in a cast without properly setting it according to the procedure prescribed.

When the X-ray of the affected elbow was taken nearly two months later on April 11, 1998, it was found that Amit continued to have a dislocated joint.

The doctor sought to explain the findings of the second X-ray, claiming that the boy fell again sometime after February 9 and damaged the same elbow in an exactly identical manner which then showed up in the subsequent X-ray.

The NCDRC bench of Anupam Dasgupta dismissed the doctor’s argument, pointing out that the boy’s elbow had not been X-rayed immediately after completion of the procedure on February 9 to show that it was done appropriately.

“In fact, it is also a standard medical procedure to take an X-ray subsequent to such a procedure to see if the reduction had been done properly or something was still not right,” the judgement read.