Patna
A six-month-old baby who was taken to a hospital in Bihar for a fractured left leg was sent back home with a plaster cast on her right leg in what is being described as gross negligence on the part of the hospital authorities. The hospital administration, though, has quickly apologised for its fault.
Baby Shilpi, daughter of Sonu Prasad, was in severe pain after she fell from a cot in her home at Babhangavan village in central Bihar’s Bhojpur district on Monday. She was instantly rushed to the local Sadar hospital - a government-run hospital - for treatment.
The six-month-old baby was understandably unable to explain where it hurt but doctors identified that her left leg was broken after taking x-rays and advised for its plaster cast. However, the doctors inadvertently placed a plaster cast on her right leg and allowed her to go home.
When the baby did not stop crying even after the plaster cast and did not allow anyone to touch her left leg, her parents rushed back to the hospital on Wednesday to consult the doctors. It was during this check-up that the doctors found that the baby had the plaster cast placed on her wrong foot.
Subsequently, the doctors took the cast off the right leg and placed it on the left while apologising for their fault.
“The goof-up was done inadvertently and we admit our fault. Now, we have corrected the mistake and put the plaster cast on the fractured leg. We really apologise for this,” the hospital’s deputy superintendent JK Sinha told the media on Thursday.
Earlier in September this year, a one-year-old girl, Kajal Kumari had died in Purnia district after being operated with a kitchen knife by a local doctor in a road-side clinic. The victim, daughter of Prakash Pandit, had been rushed to the local clinic for the treatment of boil on her stomach but the doctor said she should be operated soon for appendicitis and then operated her with a knife used for chopping vegetables in the kitchen. However, she died of excessive bleeding soon. The doctor was later arrested by the police and sent to jail.
