Two Delhi Doctors Operate On Patient's Wrong Foot, Lose License For Six Months

NEW DELHI -- The Delhi Medical Council (DMC) has barred two city doctors from practising for six months after finding them guilty of performing surgery on the wrong foot of a 24-year-old man at a private hospital here.

The council's disciplinary panel has recommended removal of the names of Dr Ashwani Maichand, consultant orthopaedics and Dr Rahul Kakran, associate consultant orthopaedics from DMC's State Medical Register for 180 days.

"The doctors failed to exercise reasonable degree of skill, knowledge and care which are expected of an prudent doctor in treatment of patients," it said.

Ravi Rai, had fractured his right foot after slipping on a staircase in June last year, following which he was rushed to Fortis hospital in Shalimarbagh here. Several tests including CT-scan and X-Ray revealed that he has suffered a fracture on his right ankle and the doctors said surgery was needed to fix it.

However, during the surgery, the doctors put multiple screws inside the left foot despite the right foot being marked with a marker. The DMC had taken suo motu cognisance of the matter and initiated an enquiry into it.

The Council's disciplinary panel observed the doctors had also failed to detect fracture in the patient's spine, despite it being visible in the X-ray. They wrongly put him on anaesthesia and this could have impacted the patient in the long term. "The patient, attendants or anaesthetists were never informed of any plan of surgery on the left foot and no consent for the same was taken.

"It is observed that the surgeons also failed to covey the suspicion of spine fracture to the anaesthetist before administration of spinal anaesthesia. It should have been avoided especially when the patient had suspicion of spine fracture," the DMC panel said. After the incident, the patient had filed a police complaint. Also, Fortis hospital had sacked the two orthopaedic surgeons, two nurses and an OT technician over the incident.