Thane Woman Loses Life Despite Pricey Surgery

Mithulal Bafna, a Thane resident, has filed a complaint with the Maharashtra Medical Council against the doctors of Mumbai's Hinduja Hospital for convincing him to take to a new and expensive heart valve procedure for his ailing wife that they claimed was "200% safe". In a complaint to the Maharashtra Medical Council on December 28, Bafna (60), who is employed with a private firm, said the doctors had assured him that the new procedure —transcatheter mitral valve repair—was "200% safe" and his wife, Manju, would be back home in five days.

The procedure was unsuccessful because the heart valve "fell" into her heart during a procedure carried out in the presence of the hospital's top heart specialists. The new procedure - transcatheter mitral valve repair - costed Bafna Rs 43 lakh.

Bafna has said that doctors had given him assurance that it will take his wife less than a week to recover. But as fate would have it, she left the hospital unconscious after two months and passed away in an ambulance on December 19.

The hospital refunded Rs 12.47 lakh to the senior citizen on "humanitarian grounds" after Bafna’s complaints. His medical insurance paid him Rs 11 lakh. But the medical men in the case—Hinduja Hospital's medical director Sanjay Agarwala, cardiac surgeon Kushal Pandey and Singh Rao—disagreed. Pandey, who operated on Manju six years back, insists she was very sick with barely six months to live. "There was no negligence," added Dr Agarwala. The valve failed to deploy but the surgeons saved the day and fixed a mechanical valve, he added.

Source-Medindia