There were procedural lapses, but no medical negligence at the Shalimar Bagh unit of Max Hospital where one of the twins prematurely born had been wrongly declared dead, a committee of the Delhi Medical Council (DMC) said in its order on May 2.
The DMC, a statutory body that governs the practice of modern medicine in the state and takes action against erring doctors in case of medical negligence, had taken up the probe in the case suo motu.
Last year on November 30, a 20-year-old woman delivered twin foetuses in the hospital in the 23rd week (or five months) of her pregnancy.
It was a girl and a boy; the girl was born around 7.35 am, followed by the boy at 7.42 am. The hospital declared the girl dead immediately after birth while the boy was said to be critical.
At 12:30 pm the duty doctor could not find a heartbeat and had asked a senior to take a look. However, by the time the senior came, the bodies had been handed over to the family.
The babies had been wrapped in clean white sheets, as per protocol. The family requested for the poly-bags for the ease of carrying. On their way to perform last rites, the family noticed movement in one of the packets. On opening it, they found that the boy was breathing and took him to hospital. The family also registered a case of medical negligence against the hospital.
The committee investigating the case found that although a doctor had declared one of the twins dead, one hour later the nurse on duty had handed over both the bodies to the parents.
“There have been procedural lapses and inadequate documentation which is probably due to absence of standard operating guidelines when managing such cases (cases of birth before 24 weeks of gestation),” the order said.
The babies were not admitted to the hospital neonatal intensive care unit, as per the directions of the family.
At 23 weeks or five months, the babies were considered non-viable. In fact, the proposed amendments to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy act allows abortion up to 24 weeks.
The DMC found that there was no formal declaration of death for one of the twins as there was some heartbeat for nearly four to five hours.
“In the present instance, the decision for management of the baby was as per the existing guidelines by the treating doctors. In light of the observations made, the decision of the disciplinary committee is that no medical negligence can be attributed on part of the doctors,” the DMC said in its order.
The Delhi government in December last year had cancelled the licence of the hospital following this case, after terming the hospital to be a “habitual offender”.
An inspection by the health department earlier had found that the hospital made separate, discriminatory arrangements for free treatment to the poor. The inspection also found that the hospital admitted less than half of the number of poor patients than it should have.
The order was disputed by the hospital in the Court of the Financial Commissioner, where the matter is pending.