A 33-year-old pregnant woman from Chellankuppam village in Kilpennathur Block in Tamil Nadu’s Tiruvannamalai District lost her life on early April 10 after undergoing an emergency caesarean section at a private hospital in Tiruvannamalai.

The victim, who already has two daughters, gave birth to a healthy baby boy, before she died due to severe blood loss. Speaking to TNM, the woman’s relative said, “She was getting her check-ups done at JIPMER Hospital in Pondicherry where she was asked to undergo treatment for being anaemic. Three months ago, her husband met with an accident and was paralysed below the hip. As a result she could not travel far for her treatment and decided to get it done at a hospital nearby.”

On April 8, the woman visited Balaji Nursing Home in Tiruvannamalai, about 15 kilometres from her village, along with her sister-in-law, for a blood transfusion to improve her anemic state. The relative alleges that though the woman had gone to the hospital at 10.30 am, she was only given the treatment at 6.00 pm.

The woman's family alleges that the doctors at Balaji Hospital told them at the time that an emergency caesarean section had to be performed. The hospital however stated that they had asked her relatives to take her to JIPMER for the procedure. As no one was available to tend to her, the relatives allegedly asked doctors to perform the surgery at Balaji Hospital itself. Her family, however, claims that the hospital told them it was a critical situation and that the procedure had to be done at once.

“JIPMER had given her due date as April 18 only, but still they did an emergency caesarean section on her,” says the relative, further alleging that the hospital performed a family planning operation on her after the delivery. He added that doctors had allegedly gotten permission from her husband to do so.

Speaking to TNM, Dr R Gunasekaran of Balaji Nursing Home says the caesarean section was performed only after consent had been obtained from the woman’s family. “Her last delivery, 5 years ago, was done via caesarean section as well and done at JIPMER. Even at that time she’d had a blood transfusion. When she presented to our hospital, she was anemic so we asked her to go to JIPMER following the transfusion. We only performed the surgery at the request of her family. She was fine for about an hour and a half post operatively. At around 11.00 pm she began bleeding profusely and we immediately transferred her to the government hospital as we didn’t have sufficient blood here.”

While the hospital maintains that there are no faults on their part, the man alleges that the woman was dead even before she could be taken to the Government Hospital. “They sent her body in an auto, not even an ambulance was used. Her sister-in-law who was with her also found that she had no pulse at that point,” he claims.

Dr R Gunasekaran, however, claims that since no ambulance drivers were available an auto was arranged for the sake of urgency. A protest was staged outside Tiruvannamalai town police station on April 10 by over 50 villagers following which the police were called in to pacify the crowd.

The woman’s kin has alleged that her death has been caused as a result of medical negligence and have also claimed that the FIR they filed at Tiruvannamalai Town police station on April 10 was edited to leave out details about the hospital. Denying allegations of a watered down FIR Tiruvannamalai town, Deputy Superintendent of Police Annadurai said, “We have registered an FIR under 174 CRPC (cause of death). The case is currently being investigated. We have taken their complaint as is.”

This story was originally published on The News Minute and is reprinted here with permission. It can be viewed on https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/tn-woman-dies-after-childbirth-private-hospital-relatives-allege-medical-negligence-99837