A newborn erroneously declared dead along with its stillborn twin by Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, last Thursday is in the ICU of a private nursing home at Pitampura, but he has injected a new breath into the mounting "troubles" for the upscale hospital.
A preliminary inquiry report submitted by a Delhi government-appointed three-member panel of doctors to Health Minister Satyendra Kumar Jain on Tuesday revealed that Max didn't follow prescribed medical norms in dealing with newborns. According to the panel, which scrutinised hospital records and quizzed its staff, no ECG was conducted to confirm whether the newborn was dead, he was not separated from his stillborn sister, and both were handed over in plastic bags to their family without written instructions.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has said that the government would come up with a legal framework to check the "loot" and "criminal negligence" by private hospitals in the wake of Max incident.
As a two-member Indian Medical Association team heads to Aggarwal Nursing Home on Wednesday to conduct a thorough medical check-up of the baby, his grandfather has demanded that he be shifted to a bigger and well-equipped hospital. Dr. Sandeep Gupta, who is treating the newborn, told India Today that he is in very critical state. The newborn's father Ashish told India Today that no one has been arrested despite the incident occurring five days ago demanding arrest of "guilty" doctors.
The police grilled doctors AP Mehta and Vishal Gupta of Max, who have been terminated, regarding the case for four hours on Monday asking whether the newborn was declared dead without proper examination because he was less than 24 months old. The police, which have registered an FIR and examining the CCTV footage of the hospital, will again quiz the two doctors and other staff on duty on Thursday.
The police, who are primarily focussing on what grounds the newborn was declared dead, would also look into the father's allegations that the doctors demanded Rs 50 lakh to keep the baby alive. The police have also asked the Delhi government to set up an inquiry committee of doctors to examine any possible medical negligence.
When India Today sought detailed profiles of doctors Mehta and Gupta from Max, the hospital replied via an email saying, "In response to your first email, please understand that no corporate is authorised to share personal details and contacts of any current or ex-employee and hence on professional and ethical grounds, we cannot respond to your query."
Meanwhile, Max Hospital spokesperson Neeraj Thakur told India Today that since the twins were less than 24 weeks' old, their chances of survival were negligible. He refused to answer why the baby was declared dead, packed in a plastic bag along with his stillborn sister and handed over to their family. According to paediatrician Tilak Raj Dangwal, the brain of newborn less than 24 weeks old is not fully developed. Even if the baby survives, he/she is specially abled.
According to World Health Organization (WHO), preterm is defined as babies born alive before 37 weeks of pregnancy are completed. Approximately, one million children die each year due to complications of preterm birth, WHO says.
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