Telangana High Court on Thursday left it to the government’s discretion to take up criminal action against doctors responsible for the maternal death of a woman from Jogulamba-Gadwal district during lockdown period.
A bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy closed two PIL petitions praying for orders to initiate criminal proceedings against the doctors.
Twenty-year-old Jenila, a pregnant woman hailing from the district, went to the Primary Health Centre in Rajoli, complaining abdominal pain on April 23.
After being compelled to run from one government hospital to another by doctors who suspected her to be coronavirus patient, the woman delivered a baby boy on April 25 at Petlaburuz government hospital in Old City of Hyderabad. The infant died within a few hours. The woman was shifted to Osmania General Hospital as her condition deteriorated.
She died the next day.
Two lawyers Sreenitha and K. Kishore Kumar wrote letters to the Chief Justice stating that the maternal death and the death of the child could have been avoided had the doctors responded adequately.
They said medical negligence killed the mother and the newborn baby.
Taking up the two letters as PIL pleas, the High Court issued notices to the government to explain its stand on the points raised by the lawyers.
‘Six doctors responsible’
Meanwhile, the government conducted a departmental inquiry and found that six doctors of different government hospitals were responsible for the maternal death.
In a report presented to the HC, the government said departmental action was being initiated against those doctors.
During the hearing of the pleas, the bench headed by the CJ sought to know why criminal proceedings should not be initiated against the doctors since their negligence killed a mother and an infant.
Ambulances
Following the maternal death case, the government started acting and deployed ambulances along State Highways and National Highways for free transportation of pregnant women to and from hospitals.
The government assured, through a series of instructions and review meetings, that all government hospitals would attend on pregnant women irrespective of the ailments they have.
