The administration at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) suspended five resident doctors for alleged negligence over the death of a pregnant nurse, as hundreds of nurses staged a day-long protest at the institute’s premises on Sunday. Three senior and two junior resident doctors were suspended on Sunday after Rajbir Kaur was declared dead on Saturday night. Kaur, who worked at AIIMS, had been admitted for a normal delivery on January 16 this year. Harish Kumar, president of the AIIMS Nursing Union, said the doctors overseeing her delivery informed the family that a complication had arisen and a cesarean section will have to be conducted. Read | Delhi: 500 AIIMS nurses on strike over colleague’s death during treatment Later, they told the family that the child was born dead, and Kaur had been sent to the ICU. “They kept the family in the dark for two weeks, giving out little information. The family began to suspect a case of negligence on part of the doctors. They approached the AIIMS director, who refused to meet them, following which they approached us. We wrote to the Union Health Minister, the AIIMS director and all senior doctors about the case, but no one responded,” Kumar said. “We threatened to go on strike if the doctors were not suspended. We did not let the Emergency, ICU and essential services be hit,” he added. Kaur’s family was informed about her death Saturday night. Following her death, hundreds of nurses staged a protest at AIIMS on Sunday demanding the five doctors be suspended and a committee be set up to probe allegations of negligence. However, the Resident Doctors’ Association, in a letter of condemnation of the suspension order, said the nurse suffered a cardiac arrest during the surgery which lead to more complications — besides other complications which forced the doctors to conduct a cesarean section in the first place. Following the suspension order on Sunday evening, the RDA wrote, “We strongly condemn this action and urge the administration to withdraw the suspension order immediately, failing which the resident doctors will be forced to withdraw all patient care with immediate effect.” It added, “It is appalling that the AIIMS administration is acting under coercion.there has been no final report of the inquiry committee and the doctors have been held guilty without trial.in violation of the law of the land, that of being innocent until proven guilty.” After the AIIMS administration declared the doctors’ suspension, they set up an eight-member committee headed by the AIIMS medical superintendent to probe Kaur’s death. Police said they are investigating the death as a medico-legal case, and a post-mortem will be conducted. The findings, thereafter, will determine if an FIR needs to be registered, a senior police officer said.
