Baby declared 'dead' loses battle for life

New Delhi: Twenty-five-year-old Ashish Kumar was over the moon a few months ago when he learnt that he was going to be a father, but a cruel twist of fate has left him, and his wife devastated and traumatised as they lost the second of their premature twins on Wednesday.

Their nightmare began on November 30 when his wife gave birth to premature twins (boy and girl) at the upscale Max hospital in Shalimar Bagh, but both the babies were declared stillborn and handed over to them in a polythene bag.

But to their utter dismay, the family found that the boy was still alive, while they were on the way to conduct their final rites.

The baby was rushed to a nearby nursing home in Pitampura, but the family got another blow on Wednesday when the boy, who was surviving on life support, died early Wednesday morning.

Heartbroken Kumar has now refused to take the body of his child, in the act of protest, and demanded that the two doctors allegedly involved in the "medical negligence" in the case be arrested.

The Delhi government and Max Healthcare have ordered separate probes into the case.

The panel formed by the Delhi government to look into the case of the premature baby being wrongly declared dead, in its preliminary report on Tuesday, found the hospital guilty of not following prescribed medical norms in dealing with newborn infants.

Max Healthcare on December 4 had said that it had decided to terminate the services of two doctors allegedly involved in the case.