- The boy's mother said the doctor refused to admit the needle was inside, insisting it had fallen on the floor
- The boy, who is 2.5 years old, was being given anti-rabies injections
- He had to be taken to another hospital for a minor surgery
A dog bite, multiple injections and then a broken syringe needle lodged in his body - a two-and-a-half-year-old child from Kalyan near Mumbai went through this series of unfortunate events on Sunday. The last, however, was preventable, and what made it worse for the boy and his family was that doctors at the hospital refused to even acknowledge it had happened, making the toddler suffer for hours before undergoing surgery elsewhere to get the needle removed.
Kavesh, from Kalyan East, was bitten accidentally by his pet dog while playing and his parents, Suryabhan and Kajal, took him to the Rukminibai Hospital, which is run by the Kalyan-Dombivli Municipal Corporation.
Kajal said the doctors advised getting anti-rabies injections and a nurse administered three - two on the arms and one on the thigh - and marked a spot near the hip for the last one.
"About half an hour later, another doctor came and called me. She administered Kavesh an injection while I held his legs. She did it in such a way that the needle broke and stayed inside his body. She then said, 'Your child was moving, which is why it broke'. If you look at the X-ray, you will see that the needle even got bent inside," the mother recalled.
Kajal said she immediately alerted the doctor about this, who insisted that the broken portion must have fallen on the floor.
"I checked everywhere, but couldn't find the broken needle. After I kept telling her this, the doctor called a couple of other people, who also said they could see the needle inside the body," she said.
Severe Pain
Kavesh was then sent home, and he began experiencing severe pain in the area soon after. He was taken to the Sion Hospital, where the parents waited for several hours before admitting him to a private facility.
An X-Ray revealed that the needle was indeed inside the body and a minor surgery was conducted to get it out.
Kajal, who returned to Rukminibai Hospital on Tuesday, said all she wants is to ensure that what happened to her child does not happen to anyone else, as well as compensation for the expenses they had to incur at the private hospital because of the doctor's negligence.
Amit Kothekar, a local member of the ruling Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, said, "The doctors here didn't even realise the needle was inside. This shows how major this negligence and mismanagement is. I have spoken to the District Health Officer and was told an intern administered the injection. Strict action should be taken, and justice must be delivered to this family."
(With inputs from Amjad Khan)
