The Health and Family Welfare Department is investigating the claim of medical negligence made against a doctor working at Jengjal Subdivisional Hospital. However, Principal Secretary Sampath Kumar said today that prima facie, it appears as if the hospital staff actually saved the life of the woman rather than having put her in danger.
Last week the A’chik State People’s Front (ASPF) complained that a doctor at the hospital (who the Health Department has requested not to be identified until the probe is complete) had left a bandage inside the woman’s abdomen following a caesarean in January. It was only several months later that the patient found out through other tests of this and only after having suffered “significant pain and discomfort”.
Today Kumar said that no formal complaint has been received regarding the January incident but the department has asked for a full report from the Director of Health Services.
“However, prima facie it seems that the Subdivision Hospital had actually saved the life of the aggrieved person when she was presented with a complicated situation during her labour in January 2024,” Kumar said. This hospital has saved the lives of many people, especially women and children, during the last two and a half years, he added.
The ASPF attached medical reports of scans undertaken by the patient in June. One refers to the likelihood of “gossypiboma”, a technical term for surgical complications resulting from foreign materials from surgery that are accidentally left inside a patient’s body.
