This is not the first time that medical negligence has been alleged as unborn child dies in mother’s womb at L.D Hospital.
FATIMA was going to be their second child, but Abida and Showkat were worried.
The doctors at the Government Medical College, Baramulla had referred “the high-risk pregnancy” case with “less blood platelets” to L.D Hospital Srinagar.
Having already lost a child due to miscarriage, the couple from Tarzo Sopore was nervous but hopeful about welcoming their daughter whom they had named Fatima.
Abida was admitted to L.D Hospital on the evening of February 16, at around 08:20 pm.
“She was admitted to the labor room for two days,” recalls Showkat with sleep-deprived eyes and parched lips. “We were told she will be operated on Monday.”
But those at the helm shifted her to the ward ‘for reasons better known to them’. “We were told that the baby was healthy,” the heartbroken father says.
“That is when things started to deteriorate. Nobody looked after my wife from Saturday afternoon to Sunday evening and no senior consultant paid a visit till 10:00 pm. She was suffering from labour pain all day.”
When the labour pain became “unbearable”, Showkat started looking for the senior doctors. “But except juniors, none of the specialists was around,” he says. “When the senior doctor finally came, he told to go for a Cardiotocography (CTG).”
CTG is a continuous recording of the fetal heart rate obtained via an ultrasound transducer placed on the mother’s abdomen. The procedure is widely used in pregnancy as a method of assessing fetal well‐being, predominantly in pregnancies with increased risk of complications.
“The results obtained by the CTG were shocking,” says Showkat. “And the baby was already dead in the womb!”
Kashmir isn’t new to unborn baby deaths, but the “main cause” of such fatalities—“medical negligence”—has unsettled the valley time and again.
A young pregnant woman died at an Anantnag hospital along with her unborn babies in April 2020. The family blamed medical negligence for the cause of the casualty.
On January 17 this year, an infant was found dead in the mother’s womb soon after the delivery at the Emergency hospital in Qazigund. Again, the medical negligence was blamed for the casualty.
In year 2020 alone, the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir registered 1345 infant deaths as compared to 1670 in 2019.
Although the data on the unborn baby deaths remains work in progress, the valley hospitals register these deaths every now and then. The families majorly blame medical negligence for these casualties.
Meanwhile, at LD Hospital, the couple’s trauma didn’t end with their daughter’s death.
Showkat recalls requesting the doctors for a C-Section, so that the dead baby is taken off the body as soon as possible.
“Later in the night,” he recounts, “my wife was kept waiting for hours in the theatre before finally operated upon.”
All this happened, Showkat says, when he had already informed doctors about his wife’s miscarriage history.
The couple blames senior doctors at LD Hospital for what they call a “wrongful death”.
However, the hospital administration pleaded they are not aware of the consequences that led to the death of the unborn child.
“Nobody brought the case to my notice,” Dr. Muzaffar Sherwani, Medical Superintendent Lal Ded Hospital, told Kashmir Observer.
“The attendant should come to me so that we will verify the allegations and check what went wrong. They should see me in the office and I assure them I will personally look into the matter.”
Amid all this, Showkat is happy about his wife’s recovery and sad about his daughter’s death.
“I was lost and busy arranging a funeral for my daughter Fatima till today,” Showkat says. “Now that I’m coming to terms with what has happened, I will knock on the door of law. I’ve lodged a complaint in the Governor’s Grievance Cell and will make sure my daughter is brought to justice.”
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