Date:10/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/10/stories/2007081058920100.htm
Back

New Delhi

“Towel left in the stomach at AIIMS”

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: A 65-year-old woman has alleged that doctors at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences here left a piece of cloth in her stomach after she was operated upon for gall bladder stones at the Institute on July 27.

The woman, Gursharan Kaur of Tilak Nagar in the Capital, said though she complained of pain after the operation, the AIIMS doctors gave her medicines stating that the problem was caused by pus formation.

“As the pain did not subside, my mother went to a local clinic at Tilak Nagar earlier this week and they found a piece of cloth in her stomach. She was operated on Thursday and a towel was taken out,” said Gursharan’s son Harvinder Singh.

A senior doctor in the Department of Surgery at AIIMS, however, asserted that no negligence had occurred. “The woman was operated for multiple stones in the gall bladder and she later came back complaining of pain. An ultrasound was carried out and she was asked to get herself admitted to the hospital, but she refused to do.”

The Institute, meanwhile, has constituted a three-member committee to look into the patient’s complaint. Union Health and Family Welfare Secretary Naresh Dayal has called for a report.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu