M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, May 25: A criminal case under sections 420, 304,34 and 120 (b) of the IPC was lodged against two doctors, one Sahiya and one from the management of a clinic on May 20 at the Garhwa police station.
The named accused in this criminal case are Dr Puja, Dr Pushpa Sahgal, Sahiya Sangeeta Devi and Maa Laxmi clinic management chief Ramesh Kumar.
Incidentally, Dr Puja and Dr Pushpa Sahgal are daughter and mother and both are medical officers in the Sadar Hospital, Garhwa, said sources.
Although Dr Pushpa Sahgal has been named accused (serial number two) in the FIR, she is nowhere in any of the two findings of the team that probed this case. It raises eyebrows as to how Dr Pushpa Sahgal is made a named accused.
The four named accused face non-bailable offences as section 304 of the IPC deals with ‘causing death by negligence.’
The case has been lodged by Vishal Kumar, husband of the deceased woman Neha Kumari, 25. The IO (investigation officer) of this case is Surya Prakash Dube.
The Garhwa police, in the FIR, has mentioned that Sahiya Sangeeta Devi, on behalf of the doctor and the clinic management, made a verbal offer for Rs 3 lakhs to Vishal Kumar, husband of the deceased, to drop the idea of lodging an FIR in this matter.
The FIR has been prompted by one complaint case lodged by Vishal Kumar with the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate Garhwa.
Garhwa DC Shekhar Jamuar has taken a very serious note of this case and has written to the Additional Chief Secretary of Health Arun Kumar Singh recommending disciplinary action to be taken against the doctor and the clinic management for causing the death of Neha Kumari by gross negligence and blatant medical unprofessionalism.
In response to a query, DC Jamuar said, “I asked the civil surgeon Dr Anil Kumar to form a probe team and the latter set up a five-member medical board including one non-doctor, a district programme manager (DPM) to probe this death case. The findings of the probe team have come in two parts, one by two of the five members while the other is the finding of the three members. It’s the finding of the three members that the civil surgeon has found much substantial and substantive.”
The five-member medical board had Dr Awadesh Kumar Singh, deputy superintendent, Dr S S Horo, Dr R K Tarun, Dr T Piyush and DPM Perween Kumar.
The civil surgeon found the findings of Dr Awadesh Kumar Singh, Dr S S Horo and DPM Perween Kumar (three members) more substantive than the findings of the two members of this same probe team comprising Dr R K Tarun and Dr T Piyush and suggested the DC to take note of this three-member findings.
“The three-member probe team unambiguously found gross negligence and unprofessionalism on the part of the doctors and the clinic management. The case is fit for severe action as no one is free to get away from doing or causing loss of life,” asserted the DC.
He said, “A 25-year-old pregnant woman Neha Kumari of Majhiaon block was taken down to Maa Laxmi clinic on 20.3.2023. She was alleged to have been lured by Sahiya Sangeeta Devi to get admitted to the Maa Laxmi clinic when this woman was already under the treatment of another lady doctor in Garhwa itself.”
“From here began the most inhuman act of the doctor and the clinic management that finally took the toll of the life of Neha Kumari,” reiterated Jamuar.
She was post-mortemed in the Sadar Hospital Garhwa and her viscera has been sent to the RIMS Ranchi.
The medical probe team noted in its findings that Dr Puja found the woman Neha Kumari having ‘little fluid in the sac’. Neha Kumari was suggested surgery. She was given spinal anaesthesia and her condition began to deteriorate fast from which she couldn’t recover.
The availability and access to medical oxygen, when Neha Kumari needed it most, is under the cloud, noted the medical probe team.
Neha Kumari was hurriedly packed off from Maa Laxmi clinic to the Sadar Hospital Garhwa by an ambulance without life support and proper medical care as a result when the ambulance reached the Sadar Hospital Garhwa, she was declared brought dead right inside the ambulance that had taken her there.
The medical probe team has raised serious questions about the way this woman was handled during treatment, in the OT and then her packing off to a higher centre but declared dead in the ambulance itself.
Spinal anaesthesia is at the core of the issue. The medical probe team noted that Neha Kumari was given spinal anaesthesia by Dr R S Singh who is not authorized to do this at any clinic other than the government hospital as Dr Singh is just a ‘trained’ anaesthetist.
The medical probe team noted the contesting version of Dr R S Singh who also very strongly denied that he gave any spinal anaesthesia to this woman.
However, the medical probe team and the police have the CCTV footages of 20.3.2023 when this Dr R S Singh was found in the Maa Laxmi clinic, doing hand washing, entering the OT at the time in the evening when Neha Kumari was to have her surgical procedure.
Again, videography done during the post-mortem of this woman found marks of the spinal anaesthesia being administered which is so outright denied to have been ever given to her by Dr R S Singh. This fact has been mentioned by the probe team.
The DC said, “I just can’t believe that medical professionals will be so impervious to human life. They err and then they try to cover it up by shameless denials. Let the law be there to tame such people.”
Meanwhile, following the order of the DC, Maa Laxmi clinic has been sealed. Its registration under the Clinical Establishment Act has been terminated. Sahiya Sangeeta Devi has been stripped of her duty.