A stillborn baby’s head was cut off and left inside its mother’s womb during surgery in rural Pakistan, in a medical incident that highlights the country’s lack of access to maternity care.
In a case of gross medical negligence, the staff of a rural health center in Pakistan’s Sindh province severed the head of a newborn baby and left it inside the mother’s womb, leaving the 32-year-old woman in a life-threatening situation.
The botched operation took place last week at a charity hospital in Pakistan’s Tharparkar district, where a woman was brought in to deliver her dead infant, which was in a breech, or bottom-down, position.
During delivery, doctors separated the baby’s torso from its head, which remained stuck in the mother’s uterus. The surgery was conducted without a gynecologist present. “The head got stuck after delivering the torso because the delivery was done by inexperienced hands,” a top health official of Sindh province said in a statement on Saturday. The tragic incident prompted the Sindh government to form a medical inquiry board to get to the bottom of the incident and trace the culprits.
“The Bheel Hindu woman, who belongs to a far-flung village in Tharparkar district, had first gone to a Rural Health Centre (RHC) in her area but with no female gynecologist available, the inexperienced staff caused her immense trauma,” said Professor Raheel Sikander, who heads the gynecology unit of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) in Jamshoro.
Such bungled delivery is not unheard of even in wealthy countries, but the disaster in Tharparkar, where 87 percent of the population lives in poverty, did not end there. After the failed delivery, the woman, whose life was considered in danger, was transferred to another hospital 51 miles away with the baby’s head still inside of her on an hourlong journey.
But they discovered upon arrival that the hospital did not have adequate facilities to treat her. She was then sent to another hospital in Hyderabad city, nearly 134 miles away. The baby’s head was removed through abdominal surgery because her uterus was ruptured, a doctor who operated on her said. Sikandar said the baby’s head was entrapped inside and the mother’s uterus had been ruptured and they had to open up her abdomen surgically and take out the head to save her life.
Director-General of Health Sindh Dr. Juman has ordered an inquiry into the incident and said that strict action will be taken against those involved in the negligence. “Apparently, some members of the staff took her photos on a mobile phone in the gynecology ward and shared those pictures with different WhatsApp groups,” Juman added.
