Govt suspends two doctors, nurse for dereliction of duty

At a time when Tamil Nadu is claiming to have institutionalised deliveries and helped nearly 60% of women in the state to deliver babies at government hospitals, at least two instances of pregnant women being neglected have been reported in the last one month, forcing the government to take action against doctors and paramedics. On Monday, the government placed two doctors and a nurse of the Puliankudi government hospital in Tirunelveli district under suspension for "dereliction of duty".

Officials said Jameelabeevi (21), a mother of a three-year-old boy, died on June 23 when she was admitted to the hospital for delivery. An enquiry was ordered into her death following which the two doctors, Dr Karpagaraj and Dr Chithra, and nurse Janaki were placed under suspension.
Tirunelveli district collector M Jayaraman said: "After a detailed investigation, we found that the two doctors and a nurse guilty of negligence. They have been placed under suspension. Disciplinary action has also been taken against them." A reliable source at the Tirunelveli government hospital said, "In case of an emergency, a patient should be immediately referred to the headquarters hospital. But in Jameela's case, the doctors who were on duty did not attend to her in time and she died due to excessive bleeding."
This is the second such incident in the last one month in which disciplinary action has been taken against doctors. Recently, a doctor and a paramedic were transferred from a government hospital at Annur, near Coimbatore, after a 23-year-old woman, who was denied maternity care due to unavailability of doctors, gave birth on the pavement. According to her family, the woman approached the hospital after she developed labour pains. The hospital staff declined to admit her as none of the doctors were on duty. Within a few minutes, she gave birth to the infant on the pavement just outside the hospital.
Although 99.5% of the deliveries in Tamil Nadu now take place in medical institutions and the state claims that it has been able to conduct most deliveries, including complicated cesarean sections, in government hospitals, complaints about negligence are on the rise.