Ethics Committee bans doctor for a year for negligence

The name of Dr Ramcharan Thiagarajan, a transplant surgeon at Fortis Hospital, will be struck off from the Indian Medical Register and the Register of State Medical Council for a year on charges of medical negligence, the Ethics Committee of Medical Council of India (MCI) has decided.

While investigating on the appeal filed by Pankaj Rai, husband of Seema Rai, who died of alleged medical negligence, the ethics committee found that the Fortis Hospital on Bangalore's Bannerghatta Road did not have the required permission to perform pancreas transplant surgery. It also noted that informed consent for the surgery was not obtained. Major Pankaj Rai (retd.) had complained that the hospital's negligence and malpractice led to the death of his wife, Seema Rai (44), who was admitted there on May 2, 2010 for kidney and pancreas transplant procedures. Seema died four days later due to septic shock. The hospital had neither taken his consent for the pancreas transplant nor did it have the licence to do the complicated procedure, Maj. Rai had alleged.

The Karnataka Medical Council (KMC) had given a clean chit to the hospital and the surgeon in June 2011. Maj. Rai then moved the MCI against the KMC order.

Clause 7.16 states that before performing a surgery, the physician should obtain a written consent from either the husband or the wife, parent or a guardian in case of a minor, or the patient herself or himself as the case may be. Dr Thiagarajan was held responsible for violating this very clause of Indian Medical Council Regulations, the committee noted. The State Health Department has been asked to take suitable action against the hospital management.

'We have not yet received any communication from the MCI. We shall examine it once it is received and will take appropriate action,' said a Fortis spokesperson, responding to the MCI's decision.