A grim-faced KC says he finds it difficult to restrain his desire to kiss the child but refrains from doing so as doctors have warned him against any activity that can pass infection to the child, whose immunity, according to doctors, is very weak.[break]
KC is the husband of Lata Gurung, who died four days after surgery, supposedly from a ´yet to be identified infection’ that spread to Nepal’s only one government-run maternity hospital, forcing it to suspend all surgeries.
Twenty-eight-year-old KC of Suichatar-2, Kathmandu accuses the hospital of utmost negligence and says that caused the infection that led to his wife´s death.
“Proper precautionary measures were not adopted at the hospital. We even protested over the dirt that was to be seen everywhere on the floor of the ward, but all they did was turn a deaf ear to our repeated pleas,” he said.
"We even noticed a dead butterfly being devoured by hundreds of ants on the floor, fresh blood stains and a dustbin completely covered with flies. The carelessness was such that my mother felt obliged to clean the floor herself with a handkerchief," KC recalls.
KC, who is from a middle class background, says he could have taken his wife to a private hospital, but chose to go to the government hospital with its experienced doctors, hoping she would get a better service there.
KC´s wife used to have regular medical check-ups at the hospital ever since she became pregnant and the doctors used to say always that she would have a normal delivery, he recalls.
When labor pains started 11days before the estimated delivery date, she was admitted to the hospital and doctors first tried to go for a normal delivery. But they ultimately went for a caesarean section, he said.
After the surgery, she was transferred to the post-operation ward where she told KC she was alright. That unfortunately was the last time they spoke to each other.
"However, a day later we were suddenly informed in the morning that she was being transferred to the Intensive Care Unit as her condition was rapidly deteriorating, and in the evening we were asked to shift her to a private hospital", he said.
She was immediately taken to Kantipur Hospital at Tinkune, where Lata breathed her last on Tuesday,” he said.
KC, who had married inter-caste, strongly believes that his family is the victim of hospital negligence. "Though I can´t get my wife back, what I demand is there should be proper investigations and those responsible should to be brought to book," he says.
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