Diabetes patient dies after tooth extraction

Panel finds docs guilty, warns medicos against ‘adventurism’

The National Consumer Commission has sounded out medical practitioners from indulging in adventurism, an euphemism for venturing into areas beyond their competence. The Commission made this observation while deciding the case of Pawan Kumar Gupta of Rishikesh. Gupta had visited a dentist to get rid of a niggling upper molar, but thanks to the adventurist doctor, ended up losing his life.

Advocate Manoj Swarup who contested the case said Gupta had got his tooth extracted from Dr Sardana of Rishikesh on February 7, 1994. But soon inflammation developed as the dentist had ignored the fact that Gupta was a diabetic.

When Gupta’s condition started deteriorating, Sardana referred him to Dr S.K. Jain. On February 15, Jain put him on a fresh dose of medicine. However, he too overlooked Gupta’s diabetes. Three days later, on the patient’s insistence, Jain referred him to another doctor, R.K. Bhardwaj, who detected that the patient had diabetes.

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But by then, the inflammation on the right side of Gupta’s face had so worsened that he could hardly open his mouth or the right eye.

On February 18, he was admitted to Chauhan Nursing Home in Rishikesh on the advice of Jain and Bhardwaj. The pus was getting accumulated in the affected area. Though the resident doctor at the nursing home expressed confidence that he could attend to it, Gupta’s wife Kamlesh insisted on sending word for Jain.

Jain assured Kamlesh that the complication would be taken care of and that a passage for the pus would be made. Kamlesh claimed that no written consent was taken from her as her husband was rushed to the operating theatre on February 19.

Five minutes later, Gupta was brought to his room from the OT with Jain, according to Kamlesh, proclaiming that a passage had been made for the pus to flow out. But what even the doctors didn’t know, as observed by the Commission in its order, that the bulge had burst when Jain tried to make Gupta open his mouth in the OT.

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After some time, when Kamlesh returned to the room after making a phone call, she found the doctors trying a crude ‘‘postural drainage’’ on her husband for the pus to flow out. But that did not succeed and he died in a few minutes. Experts attributed the death to the pus dripping into the lungs and clogging it.

The National Commission found that Jain was negligent and had ventured into an area, which did not belong to him. ‘‘Jain’’, said the Commission, ‘‘should have refused to see the patient and should have called for an ENT specialist or a general surgeon and an anaesthetist before making an adventure.’’

Both Sardana and Jain were liable to compensate Gupta’s family, it said. But since Sardana had already expired, it asked Jain to pay Rs 5.4 lakh, 60 per cent of the compensation calculated by it, to the family.