Mumbai doctors remove mop that Madhya Pradesh surgeon left inside woman

Twenty-six-year-old Poonam Gupta, a Madhya Pradesh resident, spent a whole month with a mystery fever  that doctors were finding very hard to diagnose. She even had an operation wound that refused to heal.

Finally, it was the doctors from Bombay Hospital who discovered that it was a cotton mop left inside her abdomen during an operation that was causing the discomfort. On Monday, doctors successfully removed the 15x15cm mop from the woman.

Poonam, a housewife, had delivered a baby girl through Caesarean section on March 3. Post delivery, her haemoglobin count fell drastically and she suffered postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) or excessive bleeding.

“To stop blood loss, the doctors had to stuff a lot of cotton mops before operating upon her,” said Poonam’s husband Nilesh.

According to Nilesh, after the operation, his wife was discharged within a few days. “But, the wound started discharging a white fluid and she developed a very high fever,” he added.

Poonam then underwent several ultrasound scans at the same nursing home where she had delivered the baby, but nothing unusual was detected. Finally, the doctors prescribed a Widal test and Poonam was told that she had typhoid.

“She continued to have a fever for more than a month and finally the fever was suppressed with antibiotics prescribed by the doctor. But, the fluid discharge from the wound continued to increase,” said Nilesh, adding that Poonam had to put plenty of pads on the wound to soak up the fluid.

Unsure about the doctor’s line of treatment, the Gupta family finally decided to come to Mumbai to seek a second opinion. They chose Bombay Hospital as one of their relatives was taking treatment for another ailment there.

“They had done several ultrasound scans, but some scans do not pick up all alien objects. So, I asked them to undergo a CT scan immediately,” said Dr Sanjay Chatterjee, consultant surgeon, Bombay Hospital, who, along with gynaecologist Dr Nitin Pai, operated upon Poonam on Monday.

A CT scan instantly picked up the foreign object inside Poonam’s body and doctors identified it as a cotton mop, which is a small towel used to soak up blood during surgeries.

“After identifying the position of the mop, we opened up the same stitches and removed the object that was causing all the trouble,” said Chatterjee, adding that Poonam’s condition was precarious as a lot of pus had accumulated in the wound due to the presence of the foreign object.

The doctors feel that Poonam’s fever was also due to the presence of the mop inside the body, and it may not have been due to typhoid.

Now, the Guptas are all set to take legal action against the nursing home. They are waiting for conclusive reports from Bombay Hospital which will help their stand.

According to Chatterjee, after all surgeries, a mop count is considered to be very important. “Unless the mop count is right, we never close up any patient. In Poonam’s case, that was obviously not done as the doctors hurried to stop her blood loss,” he said.