The Delhi Medical Council (DMC) has sought individual statements from 8 doctors, including the gynaecologists and the nursing staff, involved in the treatment of the twins, one of whom had been wrongly declared dead at Max hospital, Shalimar Bagh.
The council has already sought documents from the hospital pertaining to the case.
DMC, a statutory body that regulates the practice of modern medicine, took cognisance of the matter after it was reported in the media.
“After the written replies are submitted all the parties involved would be called for hearing,” said Dr Girish Tyagi, secretary, DMC.
The DMC will be responsible for deciding if the doctors involved should be punished. “We will also look at the whole discussion about whether the baby would be considered a foetus as the delivery happened at just 22-weeks, where survival is almost impossible,” said Dr Tyagi.
The Delhi government has cancelled the hospital’s licence, and its probe had found that the doctors and the staff had not monitored the vitals of the baby, including performing an ECG, before declaring the death. Also, the dead and the live twins were not kept and managed separately.
Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain had called the hospital “habitual offender” as it had received notice for not having a proper clinics for patients from economically weaker sections and using the increased beds during dengue season for other purposes.
The twins, a boy and a girl, were declared dead by doctors at Max Hospital, Shalimar Bagh, and were handed over to them in a polythene bag. The parents later found that the baby boy was alive while taking the bodies for last rites.