5 doctors sued

Five doctors of Tangail General Hospital's gynecology department were sued on Thursday for leaving a piece of gauze inside a woman's abdomen during her C-section.

Her father SM Mahbub Hossain filed the case with Senior Judicial Magistrate's Court in Tangail against Dr Nisfun Nahar, Dr Apu Saha, Dr Abida Sultana, anesthetist Fazlul Haque and intern Dr Jakir.

Judge Shamsul Haque took the case into cognisance and ordered Police Bureau of Investigation (PBI) to investigate the incident. The court also asked the PBI to submit the report by August 12, court sources said.

Quoting the case statement, plaintiff's lawyer Abdul Baki Miah told The Daily Star that Mahbub took his daughter Kamrun Nahar Rini to the hospital on January 31 and she gave birth to a male child there after her Cesarean operation.

The doctors stitched her abdomen keeping a surgical gauze inside.

She started feeling pain the next day. The doctors, however, treated her at the hospital for the next 22 days with medicines for gastric problems, he said.

As her condition was deteriorating, Rini was taken to a hospital in the capital on February 27. While checking, something abnormal was seen inside her abdomen. Later, doctors at the hospital conducted an operation and found a one foot-sized gauze inside the abdomen.

The lawyer added that an organ of Rini was damaged as the gauze was there for many days, leaving her on the verge of death. Her treatment is going on, he said.

"The victim's father filed the case as he wants justice for his daughter. So, he wants trial of the doctors for their negligence," he added.

Contacted, Dr Khandakar Sadiqur Rahman, assistant director of the 250-bed Tangail General Hospital, told this correspondent that a four-member body, formed by the hospital authorities to probe the incident, found that the allegation of the patient's relatives was true.

The probe report also mentioned that the incident was unintentional and such an incident did not happen in the hospital before, he said.

"However, we will seek explanations from the accused medical officers and also write to the higher authorities for deciding the next course of action in this regard," he added.