Hyderabad: Strict evaluation and making inquiry reports public are necessary for the government to understand the causes of maternal deaths in the state. Setting up another inquiry over the two maternal deaths in Sultan Bazaar has met with sharp criticism as the inquiry report of the five maternal deaths in Niloufer Hospital has still not been submitted by the government.
Pregnant women on Saturday were asked to go to Niloufer Hospital for check-ups as only emergency cases were treated at Sultan Bazaar. This was because an inquiry was going on in the case of two maternal deaths. The Niloufer Hospital case in the State Human Rights’ Commission has only met with an affidavit from the superintendent of Niloufer Hospital to drop all charges against doctors.
According to sources, individual affidavits have been submitted by doctors and assistant professors in the court, stating that there was no medical negligence and that the five young women died in a span of less than one week after C-section surgeries. According to sources, the court documents and reports submitted to the state that the five patients who died in Niloufer Hospital were suffering from anaemia, epilepsy, thyroid dysfunction and high blood pressure.
These cases required proper ante-natal care in terms of blood products and intensive care units, but these were not available, stated doctors. A senior doctor on condition of anonymity explained, “Post-operative care and good quality medicines are required in a government set-up, which doctors have been talking about for a long time. There is also a need for proper records in the case sheets and for preserving them.” Another senior retired gynaecologist explained, “Intervention by senior doctors during the critical stage is important. In every surgery a senior doctor must be standing by in the operation theatre. Without a senior doctor, surgeries are not to be conducted, which is a protocol, but this does not happen at the ground level in government hospitals.”
Post-operative complications are difficult to handle as there is no infrastructure and no specialist to deal with critical cases. These patients are then shifted to Osmania General Hospital. Mr Mujtaba Askari, who is also a petitioner in the maternal mortality cases of Niloufer Hospital, explained, “On April 7, 25-year-old Rizwana Begum, underwent a C-section, but developed complications and acute renal failure. She was shifted to Osmania General Hospital in a critical condition. When the doctors know that there are post-operative complications, then a suitable set-up has to be created for them in the hospital. The old system of shifting from a maternity hospital to a general hospital is time-consuming and also deprives the patients of critical care.”
