Hospital owner, two others acquitted of medical negligence

Three persons, including the owner of a hospital and her children, who were tried in a case of medical negligence leading to death of a young woman after her delivery, were acquitted by a court here.
In his order, additional sessions judge S N Shelke said the prosecution failed to prove charges under section 304 read with 34 of IPC against the trio which relates to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
According to prosecution, Heena Sayeed (23), a resident of Mumbra, was admitted to Vasi hospital for delivery on May 20, 2012.
The doctor, who was examining her all through her pregnancy, was away in Dombivili. Before he could arrive, Heena delivered a male child. However, there was continuous bleeding, which could not be arrested by the hospital staff.

She was sent to Kalsekar hospital for post delivery uterine inversion, which failed following which she died.
The family members of the deceased alleged that she died due to negligence of the staff of Vasi hospital.

Sayeed's husband complained to TMC about the hospital, following which the civic body's medical department conducted an inquiry and found medical negligence by Vasi hospital, the court was informed.
The accused were arrested on May 21, 2012.
Defending the three accused - Juleka Sheikh (52- the owner of Vashi hospital), her son Anas Sheikh (27- who used to manage the hospital staff) and daughter Roshna Sheikh (25- who assisted Juleka in hospital management) - advocate Baba Sheikh challenged the TMC's inquiry report stating that due legal procedure was not followed by the inquiry officer, who had failed to give an opportunity to the accused to defend. The report was biased, he said.

He also pointed out that the case was a medico-legal case one which the Kalsekar hospital did not report to police and no postmortem of the deceased was conducted. The accused were in no way connected with the incident, he argued.
The court, after hearing both the parties, observed that the prosecution failed to prove the charges and hence, acquitted the three in the case.