Abject negligence of doctors and staff

In a recent case of negligence by hospital staff, as reported in this daily last Saturday, a baby's body got severed from its head as nurses and cleaning staff of an upazila health complex were trying to deliver the baby without the presence of a doctor. We are horrified to learn about the incident. And we are rather perplexed at the revelation by the hospital authorities later that the baby had actually died in its mother's womb before the hospital staff attempted the normal delivery. If that was the case, why didn't the doctor, who attended to the patient and performed the ultrasound, reveal it to the patient's family members before the delivery? And even if a normal delivery had to be performed to deliver the baby who was dead, shouldn't it have been done in the presence of a specialised doctor, which is the standard practice?

Words are not enough to describe our frustration over the current state of our healthcare services as we regularly come across news of doctors' negligence, wrong treatment, wrong diagnosis and various types of medical malpractices rampant all across the country. In this particular case, it should be investigated whether the baby was dead before the delivery or if it died due to the medical staff's negligence during the delivery. In addition, the attending doctor should be held responsible for not disclosing the truth to the patient's family in the first place, and also for not being present during the delivery. If we cannot make examples of these doctors and medical staff, such incidents will be repeated, unfortunately.