A year later, cops file FIR against hospital for child's death

One year after a child died due to alleged medical negligence, the Cantonment police filed a first information report against the hospital.

The police attributed the delay to the late receipt of a report from the medical negligence committee of Sassoon General Hospital to which the case had been referred.

One-and-half year old, Afifa Abdool Talwai, died in September 2012, but the police refused to lodge an FIR because no post-mortem was carried out and the parents refused to exhume the baby. The case was referred to Sassoon Hospital’s expert committee.

The police claimed the reports of Sassoon General Hospital’s medical committee indicated that proper medication may not have been followed during treatment of the child at Khatri Children’s Hospital located in Camp.

Faruk Kazi, inspector-incharge of Cantonment police station said, “Talwai approached us after a week of their daughter’s death. They said that after consulting other doctors, they realised that the treatment given by Dr Khatri was not proper. We sent the matter to Sassoon Hospital for their opinion. Three days ago, we got the report mentioning that there was negligence in treatment by Dr Khatri and we registered the offence.”

The baby was diagnosed with gastroenteritis and was recovering well till the evening of September 24.

Suddenly her condition deteriorated and medical officer of the hospital Dr NP Khatri asked the parents to shift the child to KEM Hospital.

But in the absence of an ambulance, the child was ferried to KEM Hospital in an autorickshaw and it was declared brought dead on arrival.

Harun Rashid Talwai, Afifa’s uncle said, “If the baby’s condition was critical, the doctor should have made the necessary arrangements to ferry her to KEM Hospital. But as the parents were in a state of shock, they went ahead with the funeral. It was when we took away the medical reports of the child, Dr Khatri filed a police complaint.

“When we went to the police to give our side of the story, he offered monetary settlement and denied giving CCTV footage to the police. Finally, after an year long wait, our suspicion has been acknowledged by the police.”

Meanwhile Dr Khatri denied all charges. “The child started having convulsions, which can be due to any reason. The parents were asked to shift Afifa to KEM Hospital. But they delayed the process and that caused the death,” said Dr Khatri.