VIJAYAWADA: A 26-year-old woman on Tuesday fell to her death from a bed she was forced to share with another woman at the Government General Hospital here a day after she gave birth. The district administration has announced an immediate relief of Rs 1 lakh for the woman’s family in addition to the Rs 5 lakh compensation they are eligible to seek under Chandranna Bima.“My wife would have survived had I taken her to some other hospital. The hospital is responsible for my wife’s death,” Padda Swati’s inconsolable widower, P Kameswara Rao, told TNIE.
The woman from Kothapet who was admitted to the hospital on Monday morning gave birth to a baby boy on Monday night. Hospital authorities claim the woman suffered an Amniotic Fluid Embolism (AFE) -- an unpreventable and often-fatal complication post childbirth when amniotic fluid enters a mother’s blood stream and triggers an allergy-like reaction. GGH superintendent S Babu Lal said the woman came to the hospital for the first time on Monday for checkup. On finding that she was severely anaemic, doctors advised that she be admitted to the hospital.Though she delivered a healthy baby boy at night, her condition turned serious due to blood loss, following which relatives arranged blood for transfusion.
Woman had complications: Docs
Doctors said the woman collapsed and fell from her bed due to AFE complications. The new mother was immediately shifted to the ICU, but she failed to respond to treatment. “The lady didn’t die because she fell from a bed, she died due to amniotic fluid embolism.
The hospital has more beds than it has been sanctioned. The problem is not the lack of beds, it’s the infrastructure. We don’t have enough space or staff,” a doctor not wishing to be named said.
Swati’s relatives, however, stick to the claim that she had fallen off the bed because two women were made jostle for space on the same bed.
“Doctors don’t keep proper watch on patients in the hospital and relatives are not allowed to stay with patients. If I was there beside her, I would have done everything to save her,” Kameswara said.
Krishna district Collector B Lakshmikantham has ordered an inquiry into the death. Joint Collector Ch Baburao visited the the hospital and spoke to the relatives of the deceased. Representatives of various political parties have staged protest along with the deceased’s relatives demanding for justice.
The gynaecology department of the hospital has three units, each having 30 beds, with three PG doctors and a professor. At east 30 new admissions are made every day. In 2017, the hospital registered 7,595 deliveries.
The Health Department had proposed to construct a new block on the hospital premises and, in July, Lakshmikantham had ordered that 50 beds be added to the gynaecology ward, but nothing has been done so far.
Fast facts
3 units in gynaecology ward
30 beds in each unit
500 beds required
30 admissions made per day
2 professors, 9 PG doctors,
10 assistant doctors in gynaecology department