PARAMARIBO–The case of a bandage that surgeons at Lachmipersad Mungra Hospital of District Nickerie left in the stomach of a patient will be investigated thoroughly, Health Minister Michel Blokland has announced.
“The Ministry is investigating, but let’s not run ahead of things. I would rather wait for the outcome of the investigation before I say anything,” the Minister said on Tuesday.
The story of Mrs. Jairam (40) has been making local headlines over the past couple of weeks since Sanjay Jairam first appeared in the Indian language TV programme Apna Apna Ghayaal on Nickerie’s Rasonic TV station and took the hospital to task for the medical blunder that caused his wife months of pain.
His wife had an ovary surgically removed in January. “I knew right away that something went wrong. My wife was feeling a hellish pain in her stomach area and I could feel a strange, hard object there,” he said. The surgeon rebuffed his suspicions that a bandage had been left in the woman’s body and guaranteed that everything would be alright. “He kept on telling me that it would be okay. He asked, ‘Are you the doctor or am I?’ He said she would eventually have a strange mark on her tummy,” Jairam said.
When the pain wouldn’t subside, the doctor agreed to operate again to see if maybe he had “forgotten” something inside, but he didn’t find anything the second, third, fourth, fifth or sixth time he went back in. Meanwhile the woman’s health deteriorated and she could hardly walk anymore. Finally on June 21, the seventh time the surgeon operated on the long-suffering patient, he found a 30 x 32 x 1 cm bandage in the woman’s stomach.
“I had insisted that they would show me whatever they found in my wife’s body. I was furious when I saw the bandage, but happy that finally my wife was relieved from the pain,” said Jairam. His brother took a photo of the blood-soaked gauze and Jairam readily showed it to the media. He said he had trusted the experienced surgeon, but still filed a complaint at the Medical Disciplinary Board. He has also hired a lawyer to file a claim for material and immaterial damages against the hospital. In addition a complaint has been filed with the Nickerie police against the surgeon.
“Me and my wife have been together from our schooldays; last August we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. I cannot see her suffering like that. My entire life is upside-down,” Jairam said, distraught.
A mother of two, his wife has meanwhile been relocated to the Academic Hospital in Paramaribo, but medical specialists here say they can only wait and see. She will have to undergo surgery to plug perforations of her intestines, but no date has been set yet for this ninth operation.
Parliamentarian Sheilendra Girjasingh, who hails from Nickerie, came to the aid of his constituent and petitioned Minister Blokland to have the matter investigated. “This is a grave blunder by the hospital, the kind that happens when you have an incapable management that does not have a medical background. A hospital isn’t like any other organisation. If it doesn’t have proper management people’s lives are put at risk,” Girjasingh was quoted as saying in the media.
