Vijaya Diagnostic Centre asked to pay 60,000 over a wrong test report

HYDERABAD: Telangana Consumer Court ordered Vijaya Diagnostic Centre in Punjagutta to pay a compensation of Rs 50,000 for the mental agony caused to the complainant over a wrong test report. The court also asked to pay another amount of Rs 10,000 towards the cost of litigation.

P Nagarjuna Reddy, the complainant, who was being treated for corona took a D-Dimer test at Vijaya Diagnostic Centre. The complainant claimed that the report was delayed beyond 36 hours and later according to the test result the doctors advised strong medication. The complainant who was doubtful about the high levels took another test from another lab which was strikingly low.

The complainant said that he was put at high risk of unnecessary strong medication based on the results of the D-Dimer. He said that the diagnostic centre when questioned denied the allegations, and therefore filed a complaint seeking appropriate relief.

Vijaya Diagnostic Centre, denying the allegations, claimed the present complaint requires examination and cannot be decided in a time-bound summary proceedings. The lab said that the D-Dimer test samples were again collected and investigated as per the protocols when the results were high the first time. D-Dimer being a marker for inflammation, coagulation tends to fluctuate and the values are expected to decrease with appropriate treatment, they said.

The court in the verdict said that sometimes not processing a specimen of a patient properly prior to analysis or substances interfering with assay performance can affect test results. The court said that the erratic difference between to tests taken by the complainant from different laboratories cannot be ignored and therefore, the court found the lab liable for the loss and mental agony suffered by the complainant.