Newborn’s death: Govt panel finds Max Hospital guilty
NEW DELHI: A Delhi government panel has found Max Hospital guilty of not following prescribed medical norms in declaring dead a newborn who was breathing.the baby was among twins delivered by a woman at the Shalimar Bagh hospital last week on Thursday. While one was stillborn, doctors declared the other dead a few hours later, the family had alleged.
The panel of three doctors, appointed by the Delhi government, submitted its preliminary report to the government on Tuesday.
The report, prepared after scrutinising hospital records and meeting staff, states that the doctors at Max Hospital had not conducted ECG to trace whether the child was alive, a government spokesperson said.
“The body was handed over to the family without any written instructions and, more crucially, the dead and alive children were not kept separately,” an official said.
Health minister Satyendar Jain, to whom the report was submitted, had earlier said , if required, the hospital’s licence will be cancelled. The Delhi gov- ernment after getting the preliminary report said that they were now waiting for the final report before the minister decides what action needed to be taken against the hospital.
Earlier in the day, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said the Delhi government would come up with a legal framework to keep a tab on ‘criminal negligence’ and ‘cheating’ by private hospitals.
Kejriwal said that the framework in the health sector would be on the lines of the one in education that helped the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government to restrain private schools from arbitrarily deciding their fee structure.
“We have no intention to interfere in the functioning of the private hospitals. But if patients are looted and cheated and the hospitals are found guilty of criminal negligence, we will definitely have to interfere being a responsible government,” the CM said after inaugurating the ‘Delhi Smiles - Dental Health Utsav, 2017’ at the Maulana Azad Institute of Dental Sciences (MAIDS) on Tuesday.
Max Hospital on Sunday sacked two doctors in the case.
An expert group set up by the hospital is continuing its probe in the matter. The Delhi Police are also investigating the matter and had sent notices to the hospital for providing evidence related to the case and joining probe so that officials concerned could be questioned.
Ashish Kumar, the father of the infant, has also alleged in the FIR that the doctors demanded ₹50 lakh to keep the baby alive and another ₹35,000 to improve the chances of his wife’s survival.