Private Hospital BLK Accused of Negligence as 9-Year-Old Girl Dies

The father of a 9-year-old girl, who died on November 25 at BL Kapur Super Speciality Hospital in Delhi’s Karol Bagh, has accused the private hospital of medical negligence and misleading the family.

This latest allegation of medical apathy and incompetence of private hospitals comes days after the Max and Fortis hospitals were accused of negligence and corporate profiteering.

The child, Deepa Garg, was diagnosed with a blood disorder called Congenital Dyserythropoietic Anemia type 2 (CDA II) and needed a bone marrow transplant. The family had come to Delhi from Gwalior in Madhya Pradesh for her treatment.

She was admitted to BLK Hospital on October 31— only after the doctors repeatedly assured the family that they were well-equipped and experienced in performing the complicated and risky transplant surgery, reported news agency ANI.

Deepa underwent the bone marrow transplant. While the hospital claimed she was cured, she soon acquired an infection and her condition rapidly deteriorated.

“After a few days [of the transplant], she fell sick, faced breathing problems and severe headache. Doctors continued to say that all this is normal,” father Neeraj Garg told news agency ANI.

She was shifted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), and had to be put on the ventilator after she developed acute breathing trouble. All this while, the hospital kept telling the family that this was all part of the “normal process”.

Deepa was declared dead on 25 November.

Garg told the media that prior to the transplant, the family tried its best to ascertain if the hospital had treated anyone earlier with the transplant, and the hospital gave them assurances.

“We kept asking them whether they were capable of performing the operation and they kept reassuring us,” Garg told news channel Times Now.

“After my daughter passed away when I asked them what operation they performed, they told me that they’re not able to describe the type of operation.”

Adding to the woes, the hospital refused to hand over the body to the family until they paid around Rs 9.5 lakh.

According to ANI, the family was billed over Rs 17 lakhs for the child’s treatment and stay in the hospital for nearly a month.

Garg said he would file an FIR against the hospital.

Recently, two of the biggest private hospital chains in the country—Fortis and Max—were indicted by two state government probe panels for medical negligence in cases involving the death of children.

Earliar, seven-year-old Adya Singh died of dengue in September after spending 15 days at Gurgaon’s Fortis Memorial Research Institute. Fortis overcharged her parents with a bill of Rs 16 lakh, which included the cost of 2,700 gloves.

In fact, Adya’s father Jayant Singh even alleged that Fortis offered him money to end the campaign against the hospital and not pursue legal action.

On December 6, an inquiry committee, set up by the Haryana government, found Fortis guilty of “grave negligence, lapse, and unethical and unlawful act”. The panel also found that some of the consumables used by Fortis during treatment were overcharged by 717%.

On November 30, Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh wrongly declared a premature baby dead.

The bodies of the twins were handed over to the family in a polythene bag. Just before the last rites, the family found that one of the twins was still alive. The baby was rushed to a nursing home for treatment, but died five days later.

A Delhi government probe panel, on December 5, in its preliminary report found Max Hospital in Shalimar Bagh guilty of ignoring prescribed norms—failing to even conduct the electrocardiography (ECG) tracing—before wrongly declaring a premature baby dead.

On December 8, Delhi Government revoked the license of Max Hospital at Shalimar Bagh.