Commenting of the wrong surgery that the patient underwent, Bihar Health Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey said that it was not a big thing. M I Khan reports.
Sushila Devi is battling for her life at the intensive care unit of a government hospital in Bihar after a doctor wrongly operated her gallbladder instead of her leg.
Sushila, in her late 40s, was admitted at Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital in Muzaffarpur district last week to undergo a surgery on her right leg. However, a doctor wrongly operated her gallbladder instead of her leg.
"Soon after that her condition deteriorated and she remains critical and has been shifted to the ICU," a hospital official said.
Her family members were shocked when they found that the doctor operated her stomach and removed her gallbladder instead of a surgery to her leg.
"It was a big blunder. There was no complication in her gallbladder," Sushila's close relative Kailash Prasad told rediff.com.
Prasad said that such a mistake could only happen in a government-run hospital in Bihar. "Sushila's case has exposed the real face of government hospitals in Bihar where only the poor dare to go for treatment. Rich and even middle class people prefer private hospitals," he said.
But that was not all. Bihar Health Minister Ashwani Kumar Choubey said that it was not a big thing. "Pair ke badle pet ka operation, yeh mamla koi badi baat nahin hain," he said in chaste Hindi.
Choubey, however, said that a committee of five doctors has been set up to inquire into it. "It is too early to say that she was wrongly operated. If the doctor is found guilty of operating her stomach instead of her leg, action will be initiated against him," he said.
The doctor, H N Bhardawaj, who has been accused of the wrong operation, said that it was "a mere accident". "The patient will not suffer and there will be no harm to her even though her gallbladder is operated or removed by mistake," he said.
Sushila's family members along with people from her native village- Bahbal- under Minapur block of Muzaffarpur and other local residents have been protesting inside the hospital since Monday demanding compensation and the arrest of the doctor.
A police official on Tuesday said that hundreds of people have been staging protests in Muzaffarpur. They have even blocked the national highway in Muzaffarpur.
"People including her family members are angry that no action was taken against the doctor," a district official admitted.
After Sushila's family members and relatives created a hue and cry over the wrong operation, a first information report was lodged against the doctor. The Muzaffarpur superintendent of police assured Sushila's relatives that the doctor would be arrested. However, so far no action has been taken.
The superintendent of Krishna Medical College and Hospital, Dr G K Thakur said that action would be taken against the erring doctor soon after the enquiry report comes. "The probe team is on the job and the name of the errant doctor would be disclosed only after the team submits its report," he said.
This is not the first case of negligence at SKMCH. In 2008 too, a man was wrongly operated.
In Bihar cases of doctors negligence has been regularly reported in local Hindi dailies.
