Observing that it is a “medical miracle” for a woman to have survived for nearly 25 years with a broken surgical forceps in her abdomen, the Madras High Court Bench here has directed the State government to consider compensating her monetarily, besides recovering the money from government doctors responsible for leaving the foreign body inside her abdomen.
Allowing a writ petition filed by the woman’s husband, P. Arumugam, in 2013, Justice R. Mahadevan directed the Health Secretary to consider granting compensation to A. Indrani, apart from initiating departmental action against medical officers responsible for having left the forceps behind during a surgery conducted at Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) here on October 11, 1989.
The judge pointed out that the victim had undergone the surgery for excision of retroperitoneal hydatid cyst, a rare parasitic infection caused by tapeworms. Despite suffering from a mysterious pain ever since the surgery took place, she opted to take a CT (Computed Tomography) scan of the abdomen only when the pain became unbearable about two years ago.
The scan report issued on June 1, 2013, revealed the presence of the forceps in the RIF (Right Illiac Fossa) region of the abdomen with severe adhesions, foreign body reaction and clumping of bowl loops. Immediately, her husband filed the case seeking a direction to the State to remove the forceps from his wife’s abdomen besides paying adequate compensation.
On the basis of interim orders passed by the court, doctors at the GRH removed the forceps on June 12, 2013, and reported that the woman was healthy. However, government counsel contested the petitioner’s claim for compensation stating that it was the woman’s mistake to have approached private hospitals all these years without visiting GRH for post surgery check-up.
Rejecting the contention, the judge recalled that in August 2014, he had ordered a compensation of Rs.10 lakh to the family of a 23-year-old woman who had died due to a gauze pad left inside her abdomen during a Caesarean section performed at the Government Hospital in Rajapalayam in Virudhunagar district in March 2005.
However, since the victim in the present case had not made any representation so far to the government seeking compensation, he directed the petitioner to make a representation within two weeks and ordered the Health Secretary to dispose it of within six weeks thereafter.
