BHOPAL: In a shocking incident, women waiting to undergo surgery for sterilization at a government hospital in Madhya Pradesh had identification stickers pasted on their foreheads, instead of being tagged or marked on their hands.
As many as 30 women were surgically sterilized at the district hospital in Burhanpur district, 350 km from Bhopal, on Monday. The nursing staff callously placed paper stickers on the foreheads of two women patients.
“Tagging women who have recently undergone a caesarean section before sterilization is an important part of the entire surgical sterilization process to prevent the possibility of any complication with such women during or after surgery. Generally, the tagging is done on the hands by marking with a pen or putting a tag or sticker on the hands of women who have undergone a caesarean section,” Dr Shakil Khan, the civil surgeon at the Burhanpur district hospital, said on Wednesday.
However, some trainee nurses put tags on the foreheads of two of the 30 women who were to be sterilized, said Dr Khan.
“We’ve taken note of the error and cautioned the trainee nurses not to repeat it, failing which strict action will be initiated against them,” he added.
This is not the first instance of patients being treated callously in government hospitals in the state.
Last month, women who were surgically sterilized were made to lie down on carpets on the floor at district hospitals in Satna and Morena districts. While confirming the incident, officials in both hospitals had maintained that the women had to lie down on a carpeted floor instead of beds due to a want of sufficient beds and ongoing repairs at the surgical wards.
Also last month, women who went for surgical sterilization at the district hospital in Chhatarpur district had to lie on the hospital floor after the procedure. Moreover, due to a shortage of stretchers, these women were carried by ward boys and their kin after the surgery and laid down on the hospital floor.