CHENNAI: The Chennai North District Consumer Redressal Commission has directed a dentist to pay a compensation of Rs 2.05 lakh to a consumer whose wrong tooth was removed after it was claimed to be a milk tooth before aligner treatment.

The complainant, Gayathri, approached the aligners company Toothsi online in January 2025 to fix misaligned teeth. An appointment was fixed for doorstep scanning and verification. She paid Rs 60,000 as charges for the process.

She was later directed to take an X-ray at a nearby dental clinic and was informed that milk teeth had to be removed before fixing the braces. In February, following instructions from the company, Dr Soosi Christopher, a dentist at Oyster Dental Care in Anna Nagar, removed her tooth and issued a prescription, which clearly mentioned the brief history of removed teeth.

Later, an email was received from the company, and an appointment was made with another doctor, who examined the complainant’s teeth and stated that a permanent tooth had been removed instead. She visited the dentist and questioned the negligence in removing the wrong tooth.

The dentist initially tried to justify the act and later admitted negligence. Later, an advocate called the complainant asking her not to precipitate the matter further.

Due to the wrong extraction of the tooth, the complainant had pain, bleeding, nerve injury, psychological distress, potential need for further treatment like a root canal or implant, and misalignment of remaining teeth due to the negligence of the dentist.

The commission, headed by president D Gopinath, found that the dentist had also noted in her prescription record that “patient wants to get her milk tooth removed”. However, instead of extracting the milk tooth, the permanent tooth was extracted as per their own record sheet of extractions done in February.

The commission, in the result, allowed the complaint against the dentist. The dentist is directed to pay a compensation of Rs 2 lakh (inclusive of refund amount and other expenses) for medical negligence leading to deficiency in medical services with pecuniary and non-pecuniary damages, and also pay Rs 5,000 towards the cost of the complaint within two months.