BENGALURU: Two doctors, Vaseem and Dhanraj G A, were arrested following the death of a six-year-old boy at Annayya Health Care, a private hospital in HSR Layout, on Friday. Police said Dhanraj supervised the operation while Vaseem was the anaesthetist.
A senior police officer told Express that three other doctors — Dr Anuradha, Dr Sowmya and Dr Hariharamurthy — assisted Dhanaraj in the operation and they were brought in from another private hospital.
During preliminary investigations police found that the hospital was not equipped for the surgery and that the doctors did not handle the situation well. “We found negligence on the part of Vaseem. During the operation, the team of doctors failed to shift the boy to another hospital even as he was bleeding heavily.”
A relative of the boy said the family approached the local corporator and senior health officials to shut down the hospital. Residents of HSR Layout too staged a protest near the hospital as this is the second incident of alleged medical negligence in a span of four years.
More than 50 policemen were deployed at the hospital to prevent any incidents owing to the protest. Police said Sathosh was a single child and was born to Nithyanand and Maheshwari almost 10 years after their marriage. Santhosh had recently got admission in a private school under RTE.
Case filed against 5 doctors
A minor operation was fixed for Saturday. Santhosh had been a regular outpatient here and was under medication for three months earlier. On Thursday, Nithyananda got a call from the hospital stating the operation had been advanced to Friday. Around 4.30 pm on Friday the parents were informed that it was successful and the boy would be shifted to the ward around 6pm. But around 5.30pm, Dr Dhanaraj informed the parents that Santhosh’s pulse had turned weak and he had suffered a cardiac arrest and referred him to Narayana Hrudayalaya.
When Santhosh was about to be taken there, the doctors advised that he be taken to St John’s Hospital immediately. At St John’s, Santhosh was declared brought dead by doctors.
When contacted, Dr Dhanaraj said Santhosh recovered from anaesthesia and was fine. But soon, he developed difficulty in breathing. “We soon corrected it. After a few minutes, his heart rate decreased. Despite our best efforts, he did not respond and so we referred him to St John’s Hospital,” he said.