Staff did no wrong: GMSH-16 inquiry

The family members of the patient have been claiming from day one that the hospital employees did not take her condition seriously at all. As a result,she delivered a baby on the hospital bed in the ward without any doctor or nurse,defeating the very purpose of institutional deliveries and the Central government schemes advocating the same.

The family members are also questioning the fairness of the inquiry as it was conducted by the head of the same department. Other than the nurse who was suspended on Thursday,there were two more staff members who were present at the time of the incident.

The authorities also claimed that there was a doctor on duty who was “busy” attending to other serious patients at the time of the incident. Medical Superintendent Dr Rajeev Vadera said,“The report will be handed over to the Director Health Services on Monday and only then can something be said in this matter.”

The nurse Gurkirat,who was dismissed on Thursday,claimed in her statement before the inquiry committee that she did her duty well and that there was no dereliction on her part as she went to the doctor as well after the baby was born. She also stated that she,along with a security staff,had wheeled Lakshmi inside the OT.

She accepted that she was the one who clamped the umbilical chord cut as it was her duty and the need of the hour. She also claimed that she went and called the doctor but she did not come.

On the other hand,Lakshmi said in her statement that a doctor came to see her in the evening but later in the night when she had labour pain and was taken to the OT,the doctor was attending to another patient who was bleeding profusely. “The doctor asked me to lie to on the same table where there was blood all over,with the patient still on it,” she alleged.

“When I asked the doctor how I could lie on the same table with another bleeding patient,I was told that I could go and lie wherever I wished to. So I had no option but to come back to the ward,” she said narrating her ordeal.

Lakshmi’s husband Shailesh said,“If the inquiry committee is giving a clean chit to those who are responsible for the situation,I will go to higher authorities to seek justice”.

It was on July 11 that a pregnant Lakshmi had a harrowing time at GMSH-16 as she was left unattended by the hospital staff. It was a case of intrauterine death (death of the foetus inside the uterus before birth).

Later on,she was forced to deliver the baby on the hospital bed and keep the body next to her for four hours as the hospital staff refused to shift it to the mortuary.