Shillong : Shillong’s Ganesh Das Hospital is in focus after a woman who had delivered a child there had to be taken to NEIGRIHMS yesterday evening to remove a portion of a needle that was stuck inside her body during labour.

Family members claim that this was a serious act of negligence on the part of the doctors and staff of the hospital.

The mother of two surviving children hails from Mawlyndep village is now stable and out of danger, her uncle, Shining Rani, said. However, the newborn baby has died.

Rani said that the family demands that GDH compensate the family for its loss and he urged the state government to seriously look into the matter and to punish the staff on duty.

“We don’t want this to happen to others. This is not the first time that GDH staff’s recklessness has made headlines. If nothing is done to compensate the family and necessary action taken against the staff we will move court against the hospital,” he said.

“We will also not tolerate any made up story from the hospital’s side because the broken needle is proof of their recklessness and the mother has always gone for regular checkups. This is the reason that the Mawlyndep sub-centre also referred and provided her a vehicle to go to Umsning CHC before she was referred to GDH and the mother was fit and healthy when she left home.”

Health Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh has taken serious note of the situation and, at the time of filing this story, was waiting for an official report from GDH.

The preliminary report stated that the woman had been brought to the hospital with a “tear already” and that doctors had to enlarge the delivery path and repair the wound.

According to the hospital, the doctor on duty informed the mother’s attendant that the baby was in distress and had also talked over the phone to relatives but no one came until the morning of the following day. In the meantime, the woman had developed a clot due to bleeding inside the wound and doctors attempted to repair the damage. That was when the needle broke.

Rani informed that the attendant was the woman’s cousin and at no point was she alone. He also said that the baby had been delivered on Monday morning but it was around 6pm when the mother was taken to NEIGRIHMS where she had to be given a blood transfusion before the needle could be removed in an operation.