06 December,2010 07:48 AM IST | | Alifiya Khan
Dean of govt hospital says such things can happen, family should have approached hospital to get broken catheter out
FOR seven months, family members of two-year-old Purva Sarvodaya watched her writhe in agony as she suffered from severe and persistent pain while urinating.
Months of medication and dozens of doctors later, the family found a solution to her problem when doctors at Ruby Hall Clinic informed them that Purva needed a minor surgery as she had a stone in her bladder.
Two-year-old Purva Sarvodaya's grandmother Nanda Gandhale shows the piece of plastic that doctors at a private hospital removed from the child's bladder
However, just as Purva's operation was underway at the hospital last Tuesday, her doctor informed her parents that Purva's problem was solved without surgery the stone was removed but it wasn't a stone after all.
Urologist Dr B S Ratta, who operated on Purva, extracted a small piece of broken plastic tube from her bladder which later was discovered to be a piece of a broken catheter.
The family has alleged that doctors at Sassoon hospital, who operated on her seven months ago, left the broken piece of plastic inside Purva's body.
Sassoon operation
"My granddaughter fell down from the balcony and she had a few seizures. We rushed her to Sassoon hospital on May 30 where she was admitted and later operated.
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The doctors had inserted a catheter inside her body for her to pass urine.
But it broke later. They asked us to get a fresh one. We got it but we don't know if they used the new one or not. We feel that they didn't pay attention to the old one.
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Maybe they did not remove the old catheter properly leaving behind the small piece inside her body," said Nanda Uttareshwar Gandhale (43), Purva's grandmother and resident of Tadiwala Road.
Respite at last
According to her parents, Purva started complaining of pain during urination immediately after being discharged from the hospital.
Gandhale claimed that she took her several times to Sassoon hospital but they told her it was a routine urinary tract infection.
"I also took her to a few private doctors till one of them asked us to get a sonography test done. The sonography report showed that she had a stone and we brought her to Ruby Hall hospital.
Later, the doctor called us in and showed us the plastic and started questioning how it could have gone inside her body. That's when we remembered about the broken catheter," said Gandhale.
Dr B S Ratta of Rube Hall hospital confirmed that it was a piece of plastic tube and that it was found inside the baby's body could have been a piece of broken catheter.
"On the X-ray it looked like a stone but when we used a telescope, we detected a plastic tube. This was the reason for baby's discomfort for seven months," he said.
The Other Side
When asked about the incident, dean of Sassoon general hospital Dr Arun Jamkar said that he wasn't aware of this particular case but said that such incidents could happen.
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"In cases where we operate on patients having urinary tract or kidney problems and similar such issues, we do insert a catheter inside the bladder.
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The procedure the child underwent is a routine one. Sometimes it could break due to an accident or excessive movement on the patient's part.
If the baby was in discomfort due to a broken piece of catheter tube, her parents should have brought her to us. We would have done the same procedure and removed it."
