Maharashtra: Instead of injured leg, doctors ‘perform’ surgery on boy’s private part

After realising their goof-up, doctors conducted surgery on his injured leg, allege parents; lodge complaint

Thane: The parents of a nine-year-old boy from Shahapur in Maharashtra’s Thane district have complained to the police that doctors at a government-run hospital wrongly performed a surgery on his private part instead of an injured leg.

Following their allegation, a health official assured an inquiry into the episode, and the police said they are carrying out a probe. The minor’s parents said, “The boy suffered an injury on his leg while he was playing with his friends last month. He was admitted to the sub-district hospital in Shahapur on June 15 and was undergoing treatment. The doctors recently performed a circumcision surgery on his private part instead of the injured leg.”

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Later, after realising their goof-up, the doctors conducted a surgery on his injured leg soon afterwards, they told reporters. The parents also lodged a complaint with the Shahapur police. Although no case has been registered so far in this connection, a police official said that a probe into the complaint was underway.

District Civil Surgeon Dr Kailas Pawar said the health authorities will conduct an inquiry into the allegations. Medical officer at the hospital, Gajendra Pawar, said that besides his leg injury, the boy also had a problem of phimosis (tight foreskin). “We had to carry out two operations,” he said.

As regards informing the parents about the second operation, he said the doctors might have forgotten to tell them or they might have told the other relatives of the patient.

What the doctors did was right and there was nothing wrong in it. But the parents refused to accept the explanation given by the doctors, Pawar said. On the same day, two patients from the same age group underwent surgery at the hospital, doctors said.