Pakistan: Staff Cut Off Newborn's Head During Delivery, Leave It Inside Woman's Womb

The Sindh government has formed a medical inquiry board to investigate this case and trace the culprits.

(Representative Image/Getty)

New Delhi: An inexperienced staff of a rural health centre in Pakistan’s Sindh province decapitated an unborn baby inside the mother’s womb during delivery, Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. This case of gross medical negligence left the 32-year-old Hindu woman in a life-threatening situation.

The Sindh government has formed a medical inquiry board to investigate this case and trace the culprits.

Sindh Health Services Director-General Dr Juman Bahoto, who has ordered separate inquiries into this horrifying blunder, said the inquiry committees will find out what happened, especially the absence of a gynaecologist and female staffers at the Rural Health Centre (RHC) in Chachro.

“Apparently, some members of the staff took her photos on a mobile phone in the gynaecology ward and shared those pictures with different WhatsApp groups,” the news agency quoted Dr Bahoto as saying.

Professor Raheel Sikander, who heads the gynaecology unit of the Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences (LUMHS) in Jamshoro, said “the Bheel Hindu woman, who belongs to a far-flung village in Tharparkar district, had first gone to a Rural Health Centre in her area but with no female gynaecologist available, the inexperienced staff caused her immense trauma”.

Professor Sikander added that the RHC staff in a botched-up surgery conducted earlier on Sunday cut off the newborn baby’s head in the mother’s womb and left it inside her.

The professor said that the woman facing a life-threatening situation was rushed to a nearby hospital in Mithi where there were no facilities to treat her.

“Eventually, her family brought her to the LUMHS where the rest of the body of the newborn was taken out of the mother's womb,” saving her life,” he added.

Professor Sikander further said the baby’s head was entrapped inside, adding the mother’s uterus had been ruptured and they had to open up her abdomen surgically and take out the head to save her life.