Hospital maintains eerie silence even after controversy
over patient's death
Death of a patient after a failed surgery has cost an
established "nursing home" in the capital dearly, as it
remains closed for the third consecutive day Tuesday
following protest by the patient's relatives and friends
in front of the hospital.
Narayan Shah, 39, died some 10 days after Dr Subodh
Adhikari performed a surgery on him for gall bladder stone
at Everest Nursing Home located in Baneshwor, Kathmandu.
After seeing some complications following the surgery, the
patient was shifted again to the Intensive Care Unit of
Bir Hospital (from where he was referred to the nursing
home) where he died on July 5.
The Everest Nursing Home management has shut down the
hospital indefinitely by posting a small notice at its
gates after relatives and friends of Narayan Shah
protested against the doctors involved in the surgery and
the hospital management, saying that their patient had
died due to "hospital's carelessness" for two straight
days.
Repeated attempts by Nepalnews to contact the management
of the nursing home for comments were futile as the phone
number was engaged all the time. Similarly, the
office-bearers of Nepal Medical Council (NMC), the
umbrella organisation of all the health institutions in
the country, weren't also immediately available for
comments on the case.
Television footages Monday showed that the relatives and
other people who had gathered in front of the hospital
were very enraged and were demanding that the "guilty
doctor" be brought in front of them so that they could
reveal the truth behind the incident.
A young man who identified himself as a medical student
said that this was not the first time that a patient had
died in the nursing home after undergoing a surgery.
"Doctors here make patients coming for checkup to undergo
surgery even though they don't require it. just to extract
hefty sum from them," he told the television reporter. "If
this hospital is not closed then incidents like these
would repeat in the future also."
Shah's family has demanded public apology from the
hospital management and from Dr Adhikari. However, the
hospital's management has not made any public comment in
its defense over the incident.
In a press conference called by the family on Monday, Uma
Shah, Narayan's wife, said that she had taken her husband
to the nursing home having heard that Dr Adhikari was the
best doctor to treat her husband's illness.
But she said that her husband would have lived had it not
been for the hospital's carelessness in his treatment.
"Even after his condition worsened, the hospital staffs
said that nothing would happen to him, that they had
everything under control. Had they told us that it is
beyond their capability to treat the patient we would have
taken him elsewhere," one of the relative said.
Narayan Shah has four daughters - three are in their teens
and one appeared to have just started her kindergarten.
One of his daughters said in an interview to Kantipur Aaja
- a popular news-based programme aired daily on Kantipur
Television, that she saw her father's hands were tied and
mouth plastered after his surgery. She said when she asked
the hospital staff about it she was given no explanation.
The youngest daughter doesn't even know that her father is
dead and when the television reporter asked her where her
father is she innocently replied, "My bua (father) is in
the hospital."
Uma said that had she known that this would have happened
she would have never taken her husband to the hospital to
die.
"I have lost my husband," she said, tears rolling down
from her cheeks, "Yet, I have four daughters to take care
of. I have to raise them, pay for their education, for
which I demand proper compensation from the hospital."
However, the nursing home as well as the doctor involved
in the surgery maintains an uncomfortable silence. nepalnews.com ag July 08 08
