Man loses wife, moves court for fresh probe against hospital

New Delhi: A man, who lost his wife due to alleged medical negligence at a Delhi government hospital, has filed a protest plea in a city court seeking fresh probe into the FIR in which the police filed a closure report.

The man has blamed the police for improper investigation in the complaint which had alleged that his wife died in 2011 due to the negligence of doctors and lack of basic facilities at Acharya Bhikshu Government Hospital (ABGH) in Moti Nagar area of West Delhi after delivering a baby girl.

The woman suffered a cardiac arrest minutes after she was shifted to another hospital after the accused hospital could not provide her proper treatment. An FIR was lodged against the ABGH and its staff in 2014.

The protest petition, filed through advocate Sanjay Kumar Singh, sought to quash of the closure report filed by the Delhi Police and a fresh probe and charge sheet against the accused of the offences of causing death by negligence and forgery under the IPC.

The court fixed the matter for arguments on the closure report and the protest petition on February 13.

As per the complaint, Inderjeet Singh lost his wife on November 19, 2011 after she delivered their second baby girl at the ABGH hospital.

Advocate Singh said that due to lack of availability of blood and ICU facility, the hospital decided to shift her to Deendayal Upadhyay (DDU) hospital.

When they reached, the DDU hospital turned them down but before they could leave from there, the woman suffered a cardiac arrest and died, Singh said.

It was alleged in the complaint that the hospital authorities forged the signatures of the complainant and there was over-writing and duplicity on the documents and medical record at multiple places in the record-keeping register.

It was also alleged that the hospital wrongly recorded the time of death and had taken their signatures on several blank papers.

A complaint was also lodged with the Delhi Medical Council, which in its August 26, 2013 order, found the hospital guilty of medical negligence.

The DMC, in its report, observed that the ABGH was in a poor state as its ventilator was out of order for six months and there was non-availability of blood units and ambulance.