Youth loses vision in one eye after surgery, family members cry medical negligence

A youth, who suffered an injury after a piece of a broken iron nail pierced one of his corneas, has lost vision in the right eye, with family members blaming it on clinical negligence.

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Raja Naskar, a 23-year-old resident of Baruipur in South 24 Parganas district, was rushed to the Regional Institute of Ophthalmology (RIO) in Kolkata on Monday evening, after he sustained the injury during work at a printing press in the central part of the city. According to the doctors at the RIO, the infection in the right eye was so severe that doctors had to amputate it to protect the other eye. Asim Kumar Ghosh, the director of RIO in Kolkata, said doctors had "stitched the wound and toileted the blood" to arrest the infection before attempting to remove the foreign body from the eye.

"The youth's cornea was ruptured and we could not access the degree of damage caused to his retina. Such surgeries cannot take place at night because the procedure requires bigger machines and set up. "Our doctors at the emergency took all form of precautionary measures to contain the infection and prescribed an USG to locate the broken piece of nail inside his eye," the opthalmologist said on Saturday.

The family members, however, claimed that the ultrasonography (UGC) section at the facility was closed for the day and the doctors had asked them to come the next day. "We took him to RIO the next day (Tuesday) and the USG was carried out. We kept on requesting the doctors to expedite the surgery because my son was writhing in pain. But the surgery was conducted only on Wednesday.

"Even on Wednesday, the doctors were seen passing the responsibility among the team, thus delaying the process," Naskar's father said. He claimed that his son did not get any relief after the surgery, following which the doctors decided to amputate the right eye. "There was absolute negligence on part of the doctors at the RIO. They delayed the surgery and my son lost vision in his right eye," the father said, adding that he had lodged a complaint with the authorities at the institute. Ghosh, however, rubbished the allegations of negligence and said the youth suffered severe infection in the right eye from the accident and the amputation was necessary.

"The infection could not be arrested, depite surgery. There were high chances of the infection spreading to the left eye and the brain. That's why our doctors decided to amputate the eye to save him from further danger. We had consulted the family members and performed the surgery only after getting their consent," he added.

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