Time of infant’s death missing: Report
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police on Monday filed a status report in the case of alleged negligence by the Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh in wrongly declaring an infant dead.
In their report, the police said that investigation showed the time of death of the infant was missing from the hospital’s register.
Max Hospital, in a statement, said: “Both the birth and death time entries were made in the specific registers which have already been provided as part of the investigation. There has been no lapse in this process.a detailed inquiry of this case is currently ongoing by the Delhi Medical Council.”
“The police have clarified that they will await DMC’S report before finalizing their findings. It will therefore be appropriate to await the results of DMC’S detailed inquiry rather than forming judgment on the basis of interim status reports,” the hospital said.
The case relates to the delivery of twins by a woman who was admitted to the hospital on November 28. The newborn boy was declared dead on November 30 and handed over to the parents in a plastic bag along with his stillborn sister.
When the parents took the bodies for burial, they found that the baby boy was alive. He was admitted to a clinic in Pitampura, where he died a week later.
In its report, the police said that during the probe they found that in the death register of the hospital, only the time of birth of the twin babies was mentioned but not that of their death, despite both the babies being handed in separate packages.
Police said that final cause of death of the boy will be ascertained after getting report from the histopathology department of Safdarjung Hospital.
“The investigation of the case, involves expert medical opinion to ascertain the lapses/negligence/criminal liability on the part of doctors, staff and hospital authorities concerned. Therefore, a copy of the FIR and all relevant record/documents relating to the treatment of Varsha (twins’ mother) and her newly born babies have been sent to Delhi Medical Council for opinion and reply from them is awaited,” the police said in its report.
The court has directed the investigating officer to probe the matters from all angles and listed the matter for February 26.
The status report was filed after the father of the dead twins, Ashish Kumar, approached the court seeking a direction to the investigating agency to share details of the progress in the probe. Last month, Kumar had sought a court-monitored probe into the matter, alleging that the ongoing “tainted” investigation may harm the prosecution’s case.
In his plea, Kumar alleged that “the team of doctors, hospital management and other staff members intentionally didn’t provide proper care and medical treatment which resulted into the death of two infants and caused severe problem to their mother.”