Yashoda Hospital: Senior Citizen Alleges Medical Negligence Claimed Wife’s Life

On February 2, 2024, 77-year-old Savita Sharma was admitted to Yashoda Superspeciality Hospital & Cancer Institute in Sanjay Nagar, Ghaziabad, for the treatment of a stomach ulcer. Two weeks and two surgeries later, she passed away, leaving her 79-year-old husband, Vijay Kumar Sharma, to demand answers.

“They Played With the Life of My Wife”

Vijay Kumar Sharma alleges that the hospital’s mishandling of his wife’s care began shortly after her admission. “She was taken to the emergency room, and they immediately shifted her to the ICU. Doctors said that she had anemia, and she was given blood. They did an endoscopy, and doctors at Yashoda Hospital said that she had an ulcer in her abdomen and that she needed immediate surgery,” he recounts.

The first surgery took place on February 7, lasting five to six hours. Doctors informed him that Savita’s condition was poor, citing clots in her stomach and multiple complications. On February 8, she developed a biliary leakage, which they deemed serious enough to require a second surgery. “They played with the life of my wife. They said a better surgery was available and they would do that during the second operation on her. My question is, if there was a better option available, why didn’t they do it in the first instance only? I asked the surgeon why such an experiment was being done on a senior citizen,” notes Sharma.

The second surgery proceeded on February 9, but the biliary leakage persisted. On February 14, at around 12:53 a.m., Savita Sharma passed away. “My hands were tied. Since the death of my wife, I have been running from pillar to post for justice. I wrote to the Prime Minister, the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the District Magistrate of Ghaziabad, the CMO of Ghaziabad, and many others. Yashoda Hospital has not been responding well to my queries. Though a medical board has been constituted to look into the matter, the case is moving at a very slow pace,” states Sharma.

In his pursuit of justice, Sharma has faced a frustrating journey. He first wrote to the Chairman of Yashoda Hospital and also reached out to the surgeon who had operated on his wife but received no response. He then escalated his pleas to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP President J.P. Nadda, and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The PM’s office forwarded his letter to the CM, which was later transferred to the office of the Chief Medical Officer, Ghaziabad.

However, though initially, the CMO constituted a team to investigate the matter, the team stated that the matter had to be examined by a high-level medical team as the current team lacked the expertise to examine the issue. The case was then referred to Lala Lajpat Rai Memorial Medical College in Meerut, and a medical board was constituted to look into the matter.