Kerala Government Medical College Teachers’ Association has flayed the consistent portrayal of the medical fraternity as incompetent and insensitive by the social media and even some elected representatives without full comprehension of facts.
A week after K.B. Ganesh Kumar, MLA, brought up an incident in the Assembly about a woman with a non-healing surgical wound and accused doctors at Thiruvananthapuram Government Medical College Hospital of grievous medical negligence, KGMCTA State leadership has come out with a detailed explanation of the facts of the case.
Condemning the MLA for making a speech in the Assembly without full comprehension of the medical and scientific details of the case and demoralising and demeaning the entire medical fraternity, KGMCTA on Monday urged the Health department to take necessary steps to disseminate the scientific explanation of the incident and to salvage the image of government MCHs amongst the public.
In the particular case that Mr. Ganesh Kumar cited, the woman had undergone hysterectomy at a private hospital in Kollam in February 2022. She approached the MCH, Thiruvananthapuram, six months later with the surgical wound that had not healed. During this time, she underwent seven surgical procedures as part of the treatment to stem the infection in the wound.
Detailed investigations at the MCH revealed that the infection in the wound was due to the multi-drug resistant strain of Klebsiella bacteria and this left very few treatment options ahead.
The KGMCTA said the surgical wound could not be sutured as long as the infection persisted and hence the the treatment method they adopted was to clean the wound daily and boost the body’s natural healing process, after which the wound could be sutured.
However, even though the woman was admitted at the MCH and several attempts were made to control the infection, the wound remained chronically non-healing. The woman was then discharged in the hope that the wound might heal faster in the home environment, with clear instructions to the patient that the wound cleaning and dressing had to be done regularly at a nearby hospital and to come back to the hospital when the wound showed signs of healing.
It also said that when the woman had come back to the MCH on March 3, she had been advised to get herself admitted as her wound was healing. But she did not comply with that.
The KGMCTA pointed out that this was the treatment method adopted all over the world in the case of chronic non-healing ulcers and that persistent infection with an antibiotic-resistant organism would be difficult to treat. The doctor who was treating her was an experienced surgeon, familiar with the treatment of non-healing ulcers and there was no negligence involved, the KGMCTA explained.
The medical forum also urged the Health department to conduct its own investigation into the case and to enquire about the woman’s recovery progress in the private hospital at Ernakulam where she is now being treated.
