Images are for representational purposes only. File | Photo credit: Vivek Bendre
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday issued a notice to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) asking the civic body to respond to the situation in government hospitals and facilities.
A Division Bench of Justices Revati Mohite-Dere and Prithviraj Chavan heard a petition in the death of a pregnant woman and a newborn baby due to negligence of a civil hospital.
The petitioner, 34 years old, Khusruddin Ansari is the husband of deceased Shaheedunissa Ansari who was initially taken to Sushma Swaraj Maternity Home in Bhandup to deliver her first child. At 11 p.m., minutes after birth, the baby was declared dead on April 29, 2024. Shaheedunissa, who was in a critical condition, was later shifted to Lokmanya Tilak General Hospital in Sion, where she was pronounced dead on April 13. 30, 2024.
extreme suffering
On April 29, 2024, Shaheedunissa was brought to Sushma Swaraj Maternity Home in Bhandup at 8.20 am as she was suffering from labor pain but was assigned to the labor ward only at 1.30 pm on the first floor of the maternity home. At 5.30 pm when the petitioner’s mother went to the labor ward to check on Shaheedunissa, she found her in a state of great distress as she was in pain. She approached Dr. Sanyal Kadam and Dr. Ritisha Rathod and asked them to perform a cesarean delivery to ease the pain, but the doctors assured her that she would have a normal delivery. At 9:30 p.m., the petitioner was informed that an episiotomy was performed on her husband without the family’s prior consent. The episiotomy has resulted in profuse bleeding and loss of blood.
At about 10:15 p.m., the petitioner was told that the fetal heart rate was only 40 beats per minute and that a caesarean delivery should be performed to save the mother and the child. Around 10.30am, Shaheedunissa was moved to the operating room and for that she was made to walk with the support of her family members as she continued to bleed, there was no stretcher or wheelchair. Shortly after that, there was a power outage. In the absence of power backup, caesarean sections are performed using cellphone flashlights in the operating room, the petition states.
Senior advocate Gayatri Singh along with advocates Vijay Hiremath and Swaraj Jadhav appeared for the petitioner and asserted in the court, “The State of Maharashtra is obliged to provide public health services and infrastructure as per the Constitution of India. Chief Medical Officer Sushma Swaraj Maternity Home, Bhandup and dean Lokmanya Tilak General Hospital , Sion, is in charge of the administration. The superintendent of police station under the jurisdiction of the hospital has not handed over all the medical records of the deceased to the family despite repeated requests by the petitioner and the two hospitals are run by the Greater Mumbai Municipal Corporation. .
Taking note of the submission, Justice Mohite-Dere observed, “What is the situation in civil hospitals? We think basic facilities should be in every hospital and they are mandatory. We have informed the company.
A question of discipline
The bench also noted that the guidelines issued by the Medical Council of India (MCI) ordered hospitals to provide medical documents within 72 hours from the patient or his family or the authorized authority, requesting the same. If the hospital fails to comply with the MCI guidelines, which were also ordered by the High Court and the Bombay High Court, they should face disciplinary inquiry, the Bench said.
“We want to know what MCI will do in this case. Thus, we will make MCI a party and the petitioners can also give notice,” the judge said.
Noting the lapses in the police investigation, the Bench directed the zonal Deputy Commissioner of Police to supervise the investigation initiated in this matter by the Bhandup police and ordered the state-run JJ Hospital, which had started a parallel investigation into the matter, to submit it. his report.