Hospital maintains eerie silence even after controversy
over patient's death

Death of a patient after a failed surgery has cost an established "nursing home" in the capital dearly, as it remains closed for the third consecutive day Tuesday following protest by the patient's relatives and friends in front of the hospital.

Narayan Shah, 39, died some 10 days after Dr Subodh Adhikari performed a surgery on him for gall bladder stone at Everest Nursing Home located in Baneshwor, Kathmandu.

After seeing some complications following the surgery, the patient was shifted again to the Intensive Care Unit of Bir Hospital (from where he was referred to the nursing home) where he died on July 5.

The Everest Nursing Home management has shut down the hospital indefinitely by posting a small notice at its gates after relatives and friends of Narayan Shah protested against the doctors involved in the surgery and the hospital management, saying that their patient had died due to "hospital's carelessness" for two straight days.

Repeated attempts by Nepalnews to contact the management of the nursing home for comments were futile as the phone number was engaged all the time. Similarly, the office-bearers of Nepal Medical Council (NMC), the umbrella organisation of all the health institutions in the country, weren't also immediately available for comments on the case.

Television footages Monday showed that the relatives and other people who had gathered in front of the hospital were very enraged and were demanding that the "guilty doctor" be brought in front of them so that they could reveal the truth behind the incident.

A young man who identified himself as a medical student said that this was not the first time that a patient had died in the nursing home after undergoing a surgery.

"Doctors here make patients coming for checkup to undergo surgery even though they don't require it. just to extract hefty sum from them," he told the television reporter. "If this hospital is not closed then incidents like these would repeat in the future also."

Shah's family has demanded public apology from the hospital management and from Dr Adhikari. However, the hospital's management has not made any public comment in its defense over the incident.

In a press conference called by the family on Monday, Uma Shah, Narayan's wife, said that she had taken her husband to the nursing home having heard that Dr Adhikari was the best doctor to treat her husband's illness.

But she said that her husband would have lived had it not been for the hospital's carelessness in his treatment.

"Even after his condition worsened, the hospital staffs said that nothing would happen to him, that they had everything under control. Had they told us that it is beyond their capability to treat the patient we would have taken him elsewhere," one of the relative said.

Narayan Shah has four daughters - three are in their teens and one appeared to have just started her kindergarten.

One of his daughters said in an interview to Kantipur Aaja - a popular news-based programme aired daily on Kantipur Television, that she saw her father's hands were tied and mouth plastered after his surgery. She said when she asked the hospital staff about it she was given no explanation.

The youngest daughter doesn't even know that her father is dead and when the television reporter asked her where her father is she innocently replied, "My bua (father) is in the hospital."

Uma said that had she known that this would have happened she would have never taken her husband to the hospital to die.

"I have lost my husband," she said, tears rolling down from her cheeks, "Yet, I have four daughters to take care of. I have to raise them, pay for their education, for which I demand proper compensation from the hospital."

However, the nursing home as well as the doctor involved in the surgery maintains an uncomfortable silence. nepalnews.com ag July 08 08