A woman in West Bengal’s Murshidabad district gave birth to a healthy baby hours after a laboratory report said she was carrying a dead foetus, according to her family members.
The family of 31-year-old Sajeda Bibi of Ghoshpara village lodged a complaint against Sono Scan, the laboratory, with Domkal police station on Sunday.
“We have received a complaint from the woman’s family. But we have advised them to lodge the complaint with consumer affairs court as the negligence doesn’t come under our purview,” Nihar Roy, inspector-in-charge of Domkal police station, said.
Sajeda visited Dr Suparna Biswas with labour pain on Saturday but the doctor could not detect movement of the foetus and advised her family to conduct an ultrasonography. It is a diagnostic imaging technique that uses high-frequency sound waves to produce images of internal organs and other tissues.
Her family members rushed her to Sono Scan.
“Intra-uterine fetal death at 32 weeks 5 days,” read the report signed by consultant radiologist Dr RK Sarkar.
Her husband Sahidul Islam works as a migrant labourer and is away from the state.
{{/usCountry}}Her husband Sahidul Islam works as a migrant labourer and is away from the state.
{{/usCountry}}“Our happiness of the impending arrival of the new member in the family was cut short by the erroneous report. The clinic took ₹2,000 for the USG,” Sajeda’s mother Salema Bibi said.
“After getting the report we took back Sajeda to our house. But on the same night, she had labour pain and we admitted her again at Domkal hospital. Both mother and baby are doing well,” she added.
The woman delivered the child at Domkal super-speciality hospital in Murshidabad district at 4am on Sunday.
Sajeda’s sister Khaleda Khatun lodged the police complaint on the same day.
“The owner of this unit Abdul Alim Sheikh is not here since Sunday. I don’t have any idea where Dr RK Sarkar is right now,” said a person who picked up the call on the mobile phone number on the laboratory’s letterhead.
Reports of medical negligence and incorrect diagnosis are widespread in India.
A Dehradun-based pathological laboratory was asked in March this year to pay ₹10 lakh with interest to a woman, who was wrongly diagnosed with breast cancer.
Last year, a young man from Uttarakhand was wrongly diagnosed as being HIV positive by a lab in south Delhi, which led to his being denied a visa to work in Dubai.