Indian
Express: Gurgaon: Monday, 19 January 2015.
The Gurgaon
police filed an FIR against doctors and staff members of a private hospital
here on Sunday for negligence that allegedly caused the death of a 10-year-old
liver patient in 2011. The case was registered at Sadar police station after a
court order.
Police said
their teams are conducting an investigation and arrests may be made after
taking reports from the civil surgeon.
Pankaj Arora,
a resident of Rudrapur, Uttarakhand, complained to the police that his
10-year-old son died on July 30, 2011 in the hospital after he underwent two
liver transplants, both unsuccessful. The FIR has been registered against five
doctors Neelam Mohan, Parmanand Kulhari, Nischint Sharma, A S Soin and A K
Dubey the hospital and the liver transplant team under sections pertaining to
culpable homicide not amounting to murder, death due to negligence and forgery
of documents.
The deceased
was admitted to the hospital in October 2010, as he was suffering with
autoimmune Hepatitis (Type 1) and was subsequently suggested liver transplant.
“We have not
received any such information yet. We will be in a better position to answer
once we receive such notice,” the official spokesperson of Medanta hospital
said on Sunday.
According to
Arora, Medanta doctors had suggested an immediate liver transplant, which was
estimated to cost Rs 15 lakh. “As I could not afford the cost, I got a letter
from the authorities so that free treatment could be provided to my son under
EWS (economically weaker section) quota. The surgery was delayed by four months
after the hospital came to know that the patient was from EWS quota,” Arora
told Newsline.
He claimed
the second surgery was conducted after the boy’s condition started
deteriorating. He claimed there was a delay again as the “hospital refused to
provide the second transplant free of cost”. The deceased had undergone treatment
at the hospital for nine months and was admitted six times.
Explaining
why it took three years to file a case, assistant commissioner of police,
Rajesh Kumar, said, “According to CrPC, doctors cannot be interrogated directly
and a certain process needs to be followed. One of our teams had been working
on this and a parallel investigation was on as per the court’s directive, as
the family moved the court after the incident.”
The father of
the deceased had also sought information regarding doctors and the hospital
through RTI, the police added. “The complainant took information through RTI
till end of December 2014 and then complained to police. He found out through
other doctors and RTI that the cause of death was negligence by the transplant
team and by the doctors treating the child,” a senior police officer said.
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