In another case of negligence at a government hospital in Delhi, a pregnant woman lost her child when the hospital kept her waiting for 36 hours after it misplaced her documents.
Seema and her husband Jogendra got married April, and this was their first child. "We were told it was a girl," wrote 26-year-old Yogendra in his police complaint.
The couple rushed from Bakhtawarpur village in north-west Delhi to Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini after the 22-year-old's water broke on Saturday (19.1.19) at around 5 pm.
However, instead of admitting the heavily-pregnant Seema immediately, the hospital staff made her wait since they could not find her case papers. Finally, in the wee hours of Sunday morning, the staffers told the couple that the file containing Seema's medical history has been lost and new file would have to be created.
She could not be admitted, they said, without a file. By Monday morning, they told her the infant had died in the womb and would have to be surgically removed.
"They also took my signature on a blank sheet of paper," wrote Jogendra in his complaint to the police. "On the morning of January 21, Monday, I started the process of making a new file and replicating the documents, but we were told in the afternoon that our child had died in her womb and they will have to remove it now."
The family says that Seema had to wait for almost two days while enduring labour pain, without medical assistance, which led to the death of the foetus. Soon after he was told that his first child had died, Jogendra called the Delhi Police and even created a scene at the hospital, but Seema still did not get any medical attention, he says.
The family has now written a complaint to the authorities and Delhi Police.
Despite several attempts to get in touch with the doctors in the gynaecology department by the DNA reporter, no information was provided.