Death after robotic surgery: FIR lodged against five Gangaram docs

The FIR was registered at Rajender Nagar police station under Section 304(A) against Dr Sudhir Khanna, the urology surgeon who conducted the surgery, Dr Sanjay Mittal and Dr Manju Gupta, his colleagues from the same department, Dr V S Bedi, vascular surgeon, and Dr Anurag Gupta from nephrology on August 6 following a June 19 order by a metropolitan magistrate in Tis Hazari court.

The patient, Urmilla Devi, was admitted for robotic ureterolysis surgery on September 4 last year after a smaller surgery done earlier to help her get temporary relief.

According to the FIR filed by Devi’s husband Prem Kishore, the doctors’ team, headed by Khanna, “… negligently cut the external iliac artery, which resulted in immediately heavy blood loss, but instead of repairing the iliac artery at the earliest and taking immediate remedial measures, doctors continued the robotic surgery for another three hours approximately”.

He alleged that then his consent was sought for open surgery. Kishore said he gave his consent because he trusted the doctors and his wife was lying on the operation theatre. He further alleged that the vascular surgeon was called after the team was done with the procedure to “explore and repair the damaged artery which was very late in context of the seriousness of the injury”.

Kishore said according to medical records provided by the hospital, his wife lost three litres of blood in the surgery, which resulted in “acute kideny failure”. In the FIR, Kishore alleges that against an original estimate of Rs 1.5 lakh for the surgery, the hospital produced a bill of Rs 4.16 lakh and later reduced it to Rs 3.67 lakh after the family objected.

Two days after the surgery, on September 6, Devi died of her third cardiac arrest. “We tried to get an FIR registered with the police first, but they refused to hear our pleas, so we were forced to go to the court. The court on June 19 directed the polcie to file an FIR,” Kishore told Newsline.

According to a statement issued by Dr Suchita Katoch, medical superintendent of Sir Ganga Ram hospital, “All treating doctors have done their best while rendering medical services to this patient having a complicated disease. She suffered a known complication of such surgery. It is reiterated that there is no medical negligence on part of the treating doctors in this unfortunate episode. However, patient’s husband has not accepted this unexpected demise and he has approached the investigating agencies. These agencies are investigating the matter and hospital is fully committed to provide cooperation to them.”