Delhi govt starts inquiry into death of woman from Assam

The Delhi government has launched an inquiry into the death of a 36-year-old woman from Assam, who died of blood infection and heart attack allegedly after undergoing wrong surgery at two city based hospitals, it was announced on Friday.

“We have received the complaint copy of incident from the Chief Minister’s Office. We are going to write to the two hospitals and ask for their version on the issue. Once we receive it, we will further act,” A.K. Saini, a senior official from Directorate of Health Services (DHS), said.

Anamika Ray died of blood infection and cardiac arrest at the city-based Golden Jaipur Hospital after being admitted at a critical stage.

She underwent a gallbladder surgery on July 17 at city based Navjeevan Hospital where she was allegedly left unattended for several hours after the doctors said the patient suffered a cardiac arrest during the surgery.

“The protocol of the surgery was not performed. After the surgery was performed, I was all of a sudden told by the doctor that the patient had suffered a heart attack and blood pressure had come down,” the patient’s husband Ankuran Dutta said in the police complaint.

“Even in such a situation, there was no cardiologist in the hospital to check my wife, due to which my wife was left at the operation theatre without any doctor from 11 am to 7.30 pm,” Dutta said.

The patient was thereafter shifted to another hospital allegedly without informing her family members, where the patient died due to blood infection on July 17. Ray was a professor of media studies at Guwahati University. Her husband had written a letter to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal seeking an inquiry in the issue.