Eleven years on, Srijana KC lives a debilitated life with scars of that horrific experience all over her body and within. She is blind in her left eye and the left ear doesn´t function properly. She has a problem with her lungs and respiratory system, suffers allergies all over and the once glowingly beautiful face is a thing of the past.
To make matters worse, she has received no compensation yet--nor even a simple apology--from the doctor. “My mother had taken me to him (Dr Dinesh Bikram Shah who had prescribed the medicine) after I was saved through a couple of months of intensive medication. But he was very rude and aggressive toward us,” KC reminisces.
She has won cases from the Compensation Committee of Kathmandu District Administration and subsequently from Patan Appellate Court. But appeals by the doctor following each verdict meant that the case is now at the Supreme Court and she has not received a penny in compensation so far.
Her family had to spend around a million rupees for her treatment. Her father, RB Chhetri, who was then manager at Shangrila Guest House, had to sell ancestral property in Okhaldhunga district and borrow massively for her treatment. “We have yet to pay off the debts and daddy no longer works,” she says.
The family has been living under an immense psychological and financial burden ever since and her two younger sisters have also felt the repercussions of the tragedy.
Simple Eye Infection Triggers Tragedy
Suffering from a seemingly minor ailment in the left eye, she was taken to Nepal Eye Hospital at Tripureshwar by her mother in September 1998. Dr OK Malla treated her and also referred her to neurologist Dr Dinesh Bikram Shah at Blue Cross Nursing Home, believing that the ailment might be due to some problem inside the head.
Dr Shah first said that she had eggs of worms in the brain and prescribed medication for a month. After that on December 16, 1998 he prescribed 60 tablets of tegretol, a medicine for epilepsy, to be taken twice a day for a month. “I hadn´t even shown any symptom of epilepsy,” KC argues.
After seven days, she developed some rashes and started to put on weight. When she was taken to Dr Shah again he said it was a sign that the medicine was starting to work, instead of being alerted by those reactions. The rashes slowly disappeared but on the 27th day, she suddenly had a problem with her throat in the evening. Both her eyes became closed and there were ulcers inside her mouth and watery lesions all over the body.
Her condition became critical during the night and she had to be rushed to Kanti Children´s Hospital at six in the morning as Blue Cross did not open that early. “Mummy says the doctors at Kanti immediately stopped the medicine and scolded her for using such medicine,” she says.
The doctors diagnosed her condition as Steven Johnson Syndrome triggered by reaction to carbamazepine, the active ingredient in tegretol. Her family won a compensation of Rs 117,119.94 on December 18, 2004 from the Compensation Committee, to be paid equally by Dr Shah and Blue Cross. The ruling was based on the diagnosis and a statement by Dr Ashfaq Sheikh of the Department of Drug Administration.
Dr Sheikh said that tegrotol´s side effects could have been minimized through careful administration of drugs and she should have been called in for follow-ups after being given the tegretol.
Patan Appellate Court also considered the documents and in September 2006 ordered the doctor and the nursing home to pay Rs 500,000 more, following appeals filed by her family.The doctor and the nursing home had for their part filed appeals also, saying they were not liable.
“I was kept at Kanti for three months during which time my muscles degenerated and my weight declined to 25 kg from 40kg,” she says citing what her mother told her.
“I had to be taken to Kanti and Teaching Hospital (for eye care) every day except Sundays for two years after that,” she adds.
She was studying in seventh grade and had to skip a session. She then joined school again and passed the SLC in second division. “I missed first division by one mark,” she adds with a smile.
She again became bedridden for six months due to weakness and had to skip another session. She passed Intermediate in Arts in first division from Janamaitri College and now has given her exams for BA third year with English and Journalism as majors.
She has shown immense resilience but her scars and physical weakness will remain for life.
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