Palakkad(Kerala) | Parents of a nine-year-old girl, whose arm was amputated following a fracture, have alleged medical negligence on the part of the doctors who treated her initially at the district hospital here, prompting the state government on Friday to order a probe into the matter.
State Health Minister Veena George directed the Director of the Health Department to carry out a probe into the allegations of medical negligence and take requisite action.
The move comes in the wake of the girl's parents alleging that proper treatment was not provided to their daughter when she went with a broken arm to the district hospital.
They claimed that the doctors asked them to come back after five days and by then there was swelling and discolouration in the girl's arm.
The hospital superintendent, on the other hand, rejected the allegations saying that all possible treatment was provided to the girl when she first came with a broken arm and what happened to her was a "rare occurrence" caused due to "unpredictable reasons".
The hospital superintendent Dr P K Jayasree, in a statement, said that when the girl first came there on September 24 with a broken arm, the bones were set, the arm was covered in plaster and it was checked whether the blood flow was normal.
The next day when the girl came to the hospital she was examined and there was no pain or swelling in her arm.
"The patient was advised to come to the hospital immediately if there was any pain or swelling and if there was no such problem, to come for a review five days later," Dr Jayasree said in her statement.
The girl came to the hospital on September 30 with a swollen and discoloured arm in an extremely weak condition.
Immediately the plaster cast was removed and an USF arterial doppler scan was carried out which revealed that blood vessels were blocked in the arm, leading to the swelling and discolouration.
Following a cardiology consultation, the girl was referred to the Kozhikode medical hospital for cardio thoracic/plastic surgery, the superintendent said.
The girl's arm was subsequently amputated at the Kozhikode medical college.
