The case of medical negligence took place on April 12 at Kota Medical College Hospital in the northern Rajasthan state, according to local media.
Jagdish Panchal, 60, was waiting near the operating room where his son was undergoing surgery for injuries sustained in a road accident when staff called out for another patient with the same first name.
Panchal, who is unable to speak due to facial paralysis, unknowingly raised his hand and was taken into an operating theatre without having his identity verified properly, according to English-language magazine India Today.
The surgical team laid Panchal on the table and administered anaesthesia before making an incision on his arm for a dialysis fistula procedure.
The mix-up was discovered only when Panchal’s son, Manish, finished his own surgery and found his father missing from the waiting area.
Alerted, doctors treating Manish entered the operating theatre where the elderly man was and halted any further procedures.
