Chennai: A 22-year-old woman died two days after she underwent a Caesarean section and gave birth to a baby girl at the Government Hospital in Arakkonam on Sunday. Her relatives staged a road roko alleging negligence on part of the hospital staff and demanded action against those on duty.
A resident of Mangapettai Panchayat near Arakkonam, Meena, wife of Kumar, was brought to the hospital on Thursday night with immense labour pain and underwent caesarean section on Friday. She was soon shifted to the ward with her baby as they were reportedly doing well.
“As she was short, she had Cephalopelvic disproportion or CPD, wherein an individual's pelvic bone is found to be very short. Therefore, she had to undergo lower segment Caesarean section. She was alright with the absence of any other complications like anaemia,” said Dr E. Kalivardhan, Joint Director, Health Services, Vellore. However, as she started feeling a pain at night, the duty nurse allegedly gave her some tablets, her relatives said.
Past midnight, when her relative, who was with her in the hospital, checked on her, she allegedly found her lying motionless and rushed to the nurse, who was asleep. The nurse checked Meena and reportedly told the relative that she had died. Doctors at the hospital, however, denied medical negligence and said it was a case of suspected cardiomyopathy.
“Early on Sunday morning, she developed breathlessness and collapsed. Such cases are cardiac related. She had no history of heart diseases. After her post-mortem - conducted by a team of senior doctors at the Arakkonam GH - which took place at 4 pm on Sunday, it was found that she had postpartum cardiomyopathy and had developed pericardial effusion - collection of fluid around the pericardial layer - resulting in a cardiac arrest,” he said, adding that her relatives claimed that she had developed epigastric pain and felt that was the cause of the death.
Stating that they are going to conduct a detailed enquiry into the death on Monday, he said that a team of five doctors, including himself, will look into the case in depth.
