Kerala Hospital Accused Of Falsely Declaring Patient Brain Dead, Harvesting Organs For Transplant
A court in Kerala has initiated criminal proceedings against VPS Lakeshore Hospital in Kochi and eight doctors for the offence of unauthorised removal of organs of an accident victim.
The Judicial First Class Magistrate court in Ernakulam found that "there is a prima facie case and sufficient grounds for proceeding in respect of offences under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994, against all the accused".
Case from 2009
The case dates back to 2009, over the death of a 19-year-old boy VJ Abin after he met with a road accident on March 29.
He was initially admitted to the Mar Baselious Hospital at Kothamangalam and was later shifted to the Lakeshore Hospital.
On December 1. Abin's mother, Omana, was told that her son was brain dead, and she was encouraged to donate his organs.
Believing it was the noblest thing she could do for her son, the mother agreed to donate his organs.
However, doubts started emerging over the treatment given to the victim, and the procedure followed to declare him brain dead.
It also emerged that the liver harvested from Abin was transplanted to a foreign national without following the due procedure.
How a doctor fought the case
In 2016, a Kollam-based doctor, Dr S Ganapathy, who came to know about the incident, started looking into the medical records of Abin and found several anomalies.
"When one of the doctors who had signed the report claimed she never attended the meeting and her signature was forged, I knew something was wrong and I started to hunt for the medical records of the case," he said.
He then approached the court seeking a probe into the matter. The court sought the opinion of two medical experts who asserted that the hospital had failed to follow due process.
What the court found
Based on their findings, the court said there was no effort to drain out the blood, though the victim was examined by neurosurgeons at the two hospitals where he was treated.
The court also noted that even before planning to conduct neurosurgery or blood evacuation, HIV tests were conducted by Lakeshore Hospital.
"Even prior to the declaration of brain death, doctors of the transplantation team visited the patient and a liver function test was conducted," the court further noted.
It also said the death certificate was not per the prescribed norms, and some doctors who signed it were not authorised to do so under relevant laws.
The court also noted that even the Apnoea test, a mandatory examination for determining brain death, was not conducted.
The liver of the victim was transplanted into a foreign national without the sanction of the internal authorisation committee, and in the Malaysian Embassy certificate, the wife of the recipient is shown as the donor.
Hospital denies wrongdoing
The hospital, meanwhile, denied the allegations.
"All investigations were conducted in the presence of two witnesses, and written consent for organ retrieval was obtained from the patient's mother," the hospital said in a statement.
The hospital asserted that they strictly followed medical procedures, organ donation laws, and human rights laws during the incident.
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