Doctors performed surgery on boy's private part instead of injured leg, allege his parents

THANE: The parents of a 9-year-old boy from Shahapur have alleged that doctors in the local sub-district hospital performed a circumcision instead of a leg surgery on their son. They have filed a complaint with the hospital and local Shahapur police, stating the doctors got confused as they operated on three patients in a similar age group on the fateful day.However, the doctors claimed they were right in performing the circumcision along with the leg surgery as the boy had phimosis (tight foreskin).
The civil surgeon of the Thane Civil Hospital has initiated an inquiry following the parents' complaint. The family lives in Saravali village in Shahapur; the father is a daily wage labourer, the mother is a domestic help and the boy is studying.
According to the family, the child injured his leg while playing with his friends last month. The child had to go to the hospital regularly for treatment as he had developed an infection near the cut.
The family then admitted the child to hospital on June 15 where, according to the family, a doctor named Swapnil performed the operation.
The child's mother said, "When the doctor brought my son out of the operation theatre, my son told me that the doctor operated on his private part instead of his leg. When I asked the doctor about it, he hurriedly took the child back to the operation theatre and operated on his leg." When the family questioned the doctor, he said the child would be fine.
The family refused to take the child home till the hospital gave them in writing that nothing would happen to their child. Meanwhile, after the family's complaint, activists from the city have taken up the issue and demanded that action be taken against the doctor responsible for the alleged operation mix-up. Gajendra Pawar, the health officer of sub-district health hospital in Shahapur, said, "Apart from the injury in the leg, the child also had a problem of phimosis which is why we operated on his penis."
When asked that the family had complained that they were not told anything about the same before the operation, Pawar said that many times different relatives of patient stay in the hospital, it is possible that they did not understand. "But since the family has complained, the civil surgeon's team will investigate the same," he said. -Pradeep Gupta