The Mumbai police arrested one and booked four others in Mumbai for allegedly abusing and manhandling a female resident doctor at KEM hospital following the death of an 18-year-old patient due to cardiac arrest.
The one arrested is the brother of the deceased Jatin parmar. The accused men, all of them relatives of Parmar, claimed that he was still alive and forced the doctors to restart the ventilator. They further manhandled an on-duty female resident doctor.
Taking out a silent march to Bhoiwada police station on Saturday, September 12, the resident doctors of KEM Hospital demanded that an FIR be registered against Parmar’s family members. An FIR was registered against the accused under several IPC sections along with Maharashtra Medicare Service Persons and Medicare Service Institutions Act.
KEM hospital authorities said that Parmar had a fever and was earlier admitted to a private nursing home for three days. ‘There he had three episodes of fits. As he needed a ventilator, he was transferred to KEM hospital at 9.05 pm on September 7,’ The Indian Express quoted a hospital official as saying. The official added that the patient, at the time of admission, was suffering from fits and breathlessness.
Dean of KEM hospital Dr Hemant Deshmukh said, ‘After admission at KEM hospital, Parmar was immediately put on a ventilator as his saturation was 80 per cent on 15 litres per minute oxygen. His clinical condition was explained to the accompanying relatives. Apart from the ventilator, he was treated with antibiotics, anti-fit medications, IV fluids and blood pressure maintenance medications. Despite all the efforts, the patient’s condition was deteriorating, which was communicated time and again to close relatives.’
He added that Parmar died of a cardiac arrest at 1:20 AM on September 9.
‘Parmar was declared dead in the presence of his brother and maternal uncle after showing them a flat ECG line, which is indicative of death,’ Deshmukh said.
Police said that Parmar’s relatives entered the ICU after a while, and claimed that he was declared dead without informing them. They tore the ECG. ‘They abused the female resident doctor and even manhandled other hospital staffers,’ Senior Inspector Vinod Kamble of Bhoiwada police station said.
Claiming that Parmar was still alive, the relatives forced the hospital authorities to restart the ventilator.
‘Any ventilator, when switched on even without being attached to a patient, shows certain graphs during breath delivery and was misinterpreted as spontaneous breathing activity by the patient’s relatives. On their insistence, a senior physician on call was called in and after the intervention of the police, the ventilator was disconnected,’ Deshmukh said.
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