The broom left the woman extremely ill and she had to undergo three more surgeries to remove the foreign body and ease her condition. She sued the doctors and the hospital for medical malpractice in a Bengaluru consumer court, which ordered the hospital to pay her Rs 20 lakh compensation for the suffering she caused.
On July 29, 2018, the Yelahanka resident suffered from labor pains and was admitted to TMA Pai Hospital, opposite the old Udupi taluk office, where she was consulting doctors during her pregnancy. Amid complications, doctors performed caesarean section surgery and the woman gave birth to a baby girl.
However, her ordeal began soon after when she experienced excruciating pain in her lower abdomen and vaginal discharge. She turned to the doctors who had treated her and complained of discomfort. But the doctors described her pain and discharge as normal after the C-section and sent her home.
With the pain continuing, the young mother returned on September 22, 2018, only to encounter an abusive doctor who prescribed her medication for menstrual disorders. An ultrasound showed that her left ovary was not visible and she expressed fears that there might be a foreign object inside her body. But they were blown away. Without any improvement, the doctors operated on the woman for the second time on 24 September 2018 and she was discharged on 6 October.
However, the woman experienced severe pain in her nipple, which made it difficult for her to feed her baby. Visiting the hospital every other day for treatment after the second surgery, she told the doctors at TMA Pai that something was still terribly wrong with her body.
With the surgeons and specialists not paying attention, her husband contacted an Ayurvedic specialist in Bangalore. The doctor recommended an MRI which shockingly revealed the presence of Gossypiboma (Gossypim – a Latin word meaning cloth or cotton and Boma, a Swahil word meaning place of concealment), which was a surgical broom in the abdomen of the woman. The doctor recommended urgent surgery and the woman was admitted to Kasturba Hospital, Manipal where a third surgery was conducted and the surgical cloth was removed. Afterwards, her pain subsided. Doctors who removed the broom said her foreign body was negligently inserted into her body during the caesarean section performed by surgeons at TMA Pai Hospital.
The woman’s ordeal did not end there because the broom had hit her sigmoid colon: a fourth operation was performed at Kasturba hospital to remove the colostomy bag.
Despite all this, surgeons and representatives of TMA Pai Hospital accused the Bengaluru woman of seeking treatment from different doctors for her worsening condition. Having had enough, the 31-year-old sued Udupi Hospital and 11 doctors at Bengaluru Rural & Urban 1st District Consumer Dispute Redress Commission in Shantinagar for medical malpractice which led to deterioration of her health and a as a result of which she could not breastfeed. son of her.
The woman’s lawyer presented her case, while most of the accused doctors remained ex-parte. However, TMA Pai Hospital and four doctors were represented by a lawyer, who said the complaint was false and baseless. He argued that all objects, including surgical mops, were accounted for during and after the cesarean section and no foreign objects were left inside the woman’s abdomen.
