In yet another case of medical negligence, a five-year-old girl died in Chhattisgarh on Monday (August 27) after the cylinder attached to her ventilator support system ran out of oxygen. The incident took place when the child was being shifted to another hospital, which is located 160 km away from the hospital where she had been admitted.
According to a Press Trust of India report, the child identified as Bulbul Kudiyam had fallen sick at her ashram school in Matwada village on August 22 and was soon rushed to Bijapur district hospital. She was diagnosed with pneumonia and had been kept on ventilator support, said Bijapur Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr BR Pujari.
However, her health deteriorated on Monday night, following which the authorities decided to shift her to Jagdalpur Medical College Hospital in Bastar district. Unfortunately, the oxygen in the cylinder was exhausted by the time the ambulance reached the Tokapal village in Bastar.
The doctors at the Jagdalpur Medical College Hospital pronounced her brought dead. "Generally it requires one oxygen cylinder to shift patients from Bijapur to Jagdalpur. We will investigate how it got exhausted so quickly," Dr Pujari said.
It has also come to light that there was no medical technician travelling along with Bulbul in the ambulance. The Bijapur district hospital has only one technician to assist ambulances and he was on duty somewhere else when the victim was being shifted.
Dr Pujari claimed had the "driver contacted Bijapur health officials in time, they would have arranged for an oxygen cylinder from nearby ambulance services." The ambulance driver had alleged that he had reached out to the Tokapals local government hospital for a replacement oxygen cylinder but they refused.
"The oxygen exhausted in the cylinder when the ambulance was nearing Tokapal. The driver had tried to arrange for another cylinder from Tokapal hospital but staff there refused. There was no technician in the ambulance either," Chamru Kudiyam, the child's father told the news agency.
Chamru said that there was negligence on the part of both the Bijapur district hospital and the authorities of the ashram school, where Bulbul studied.
