'AIIMS nurse's death due to infrastructure gap'

The AIIMS resident doctors on Saturday said "infrastructure lacunae" in the maternity operation theatre (OT) was the main reason behind a staff nurse's death during an operation.

The doctors' reaction comes days after AIIMS terminated one of its resident doctors following the nurse's death during caesarean operation.

The resident doctors of anesthesia department have written to Health Minister J.P. Nadda to reconsider the decision.

Calling the final report by AIIMS administration as inappropriate, the doctors have said that there was an infrastructure lacunae in the back table of the maternity OT, where the staff nurse Rajbir Kaur was operated, leading to her death.

"We have found a number of infrastructure lacunae in the back table of the maternity OT, where Kaur was operated which directly contributed to poor outcome in her case," says the letter written to Nadda, also the president of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

According to the resident doctors, the back table in the maternity OT is never meant for general anesthesia practice as it lacks basic life saving facilities.

N. Nisa -- a senior resident doctor at anaesthesia department of AIIMS -- was terminated by the AIIMS committee on February 21.

A committee was constituted to investigate the alleged negligence by doctors.

Kaur had suffered a cardiac arrest during the surgery on February 4, leading to her death.

The resident doctors from the anaesthesia department have also raised questions on the inclusion of Head of Gynaecology and Obstetrics department Alka Kriplani in the committee to investigate the incident.

Resident doctors said that Nisa had clearly denied Kaur's case initially, considering the maternal safety issues for conducting anaesthesia in back table.

The doctors from the anesthesia department have also said that the conclusion of the committee, which had found Nisa not to be present during the caeserian section, was based on the testimony of witness working directly under the control of Obstetrics and Gynaecology and under the influence of head of the department Alka Kriplani.

--IANS

rup/pgh/vm