The Delhi Police on Monday filed a status report of its investigation into the death of a new born at Max Hospital in the city’s Shalimar Bagh area in November 2017, PTI reported. The court asked the police to expedite the investigation and listed the matter for February 26.
A baby and his twin sister were born prematurely at the Shalimar Bagh hospital on November 30. Doctors had declared them stillborn. But when the parents were on their way to a crematorium, they found the boy still alive. The baby died a few days later.
The police claimed that during the investigation it found that in the hospital’s register, only the time of birth of the two infants were mentioned, but not the time of their death. According to the status report, the police have sent the copy of the FIR to the Delhi Medical Council for an expert opinion and are waiting for a report.
The police further said that they had received the baby’s post-mortem report, but were waiting for a final report regarding the cause of death from the histopathology department of Safdarjung Hospital.
The investigation officer also said in the status report that the hospital attendant was unable to give a satisfactory response when asked to explain the circumstances under which the bodies were handed over to the family, ANI reported.
The parents had alleged that Max Hospital not only wrongly declared their children dead, but also handed them the babies in a plastic bag.
The Delhi government had cancelled the hospital’s licence after the case came to light. But 10 days later, on December 20, the hospital resumed operations saying the “appropriate appellate authority” it had appealed to had stayed the cancellation. On the same day, the Delhi Medical Council had issued notices to nine doctors and two nurses of the hospital.
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