Maiku Lal Virendra Nath Hospital

PILIBHIT: In yet another case of medical negligence, a doctor at a private hospital purportedly continued to treat a dead patient for over 12 hours and charged the family Rs 1 lakh for “medical procedure”.

Raju, who belonged to Sikrana village under Puranpur Kotwali, was admitted to the hospital in a critical condition at 2 am on June 7. His family alleged that he died around 9 am the following day but the doctor pretended that he was still in a critical state. The hospital also charged the family Rs 1 lakh for “keeping the patient on a ventilator”.

An autopsy was conducted between 5.35 pm and 6.30 pm on June 8. The report stated that the man had died at least 12 to 24 hours before the autopsy was initiated. An inquiry panel of three additional chief medical officers was constituted by chief medical officer, Dr Seema Agarwal, and a report was sent to district magistrate on Saturday. A magisterial inquiry is also being conducted by the sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) of Pilibhit Sadar circle, Vandana Trivedi.

According to deceased’s widow, Sharda Devi, she had admitted her husband to the hospital where the doctor charged a first installment of Rs 40,000 at the time of admission. Dr Yogendra Nath Mishra at the hospital assured her that he would reach a conclusion on the patient’s medical condition only after 72 hours, Sharda Devi claimed.

The next day, on reaching the hospital at 9 am, she along with her family members found that a medical tape was reportedly wrapped over his husband’s eyes. Looking at the tape, she suspected that her husband has already passed away and so she urged the doctor to discharge him. But, the doctor declined. On the contrary, according to her, the doctor said that the patient could not be discharged before 72 hours from the time of admission.

In fact, the doctor prepared a reference for higher medical centre instead of declaring the patient dead and handing over the body. At the same time, she was charged an additional Rs 60,000 medical expense.

The police later sent the body for autopsy. “The autopsy stated that Raju had died between 5.35 pm on June 7 and 5.35am on June 8. So, I along with my family members took up the matter with the district magistrate, the SP and the CMO,” Sharda Devi added.

CMO Dr Seema Agarwal told TOI that she had constituted a panel of ACMO Dr Harpal, Dr Vijay Bahadur Ram and Dr RV Singh for an investigation and a report has been sent to the DM. While DM Vaibhav Shrivastav said that he would take any decision only after going through the contents of the report.

On being asked about the issue, Dr Yogendra Nath Mishra of Maiku Lal Virendra Nath hospital denied the allegations of charging Rs 1 lakh for Raju’s treatment. “I charged only Rs 8,000. As the patient’s heart was still working, he was immediately put on a ventilator. His brain wasn’t functioning,” he claimed, adding, “In 90 % of such cases, the brain becomes active within a span of 72 hours with the application of a ventilator. So, the patient’s family was advised to wait till that period.”

