Medical Negligence Allegations: Delhi HC orders post mortem of 2-yr-old

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court has directed the authorities to ensure that post mortem of a two-year-old child, who died in hospital is conducted and the mortal remains are handed over to the family today itself.

The Child has fallen from the second floor of a building, and the family alleges medical negligence that the timely treatment was not provided to her which leads to the death of the child.

The high court said it will not allow any delay in such a matter and the body of the girl child, who died Sunday morning, shall be positively released by tonight and asked the authorities to report compliance on Tuesday morning.

"Two-year-old child has passed away. Why the corpus is still lying in the mortuary? When will you release the body of the child?," a bench of Justices Siddharth Mridul and Rajnish Bhatnagar asked the authorities.

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The court was hearing a plea filed by the toddler's parents who said the child died at 8 AM on Sunday in Safdarjung Hospital which has not yet handed over the body to the family for last rites.

"The body is illegally kept and confined at the mortuary of Safdarjung Hospital and it is required to be immediately released and handed over to the child's family," the counsel representing the parents submitted.

Advocate Dhananjai Jain, appearing for the parents, said the child who belonged to a poor family fell from the second floor of a building where they reside and was taken to a private hospital on Saturday from where the doctors referred the minor to Safdarjung Hospital.

The family alleged negligence on the part of doctors of Safdarjung Hospital for not giving timely treatment to the child leading to her death.

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"The child having extreme critical injuries was not even admitted to ICU. Not even physically examined until asked repeatedly. The child was left in the general ward with attendants in an unconscious state despite such critical injuries to which she succumbed shortly," the plea said.

During the hearing, the court was informed by a Delhi Police official that a medical board is being set up for conducting a post-mortem of the child.

The court then asked the counsel for the Centre and Delhi Police to ensure that the post-mortem is conducted today and the body is released to the family by tonight.

"This has to be done today. We don't want any delay when it comes to this. This has to be done today. We want compliance and renotify it for tomorrow morning," the bench said.

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The court said if the family was suspecting foul play, a post-mortem is a must and asked the parents' counsel if they were alleging negligence by the hospital.

To this, the counsel replied in affirmative and said the child was not given proper treatment by the doctors and added "I want the release of the body. I don't want post-mortem. How long Am I going to wait for the body?" Besides the release of the body, the family has also sought to direct the police to lodge an FIR against a doctor at the Safdarjung Hospital for alleged sheer apathy and medical negligence leading to the death of the child.

The plea also sought a direction from the hospital and police to seize and preserve the CCTV footage of the hospital and the medical file of the child.