Global Hospitals, Hyderabad, which hit the headlines recently by carrying out the first cadaver liver transplant in Andhra Pradesh, has been charged with negligence following the death of a patient who underwent a liver transplantation in the hospital dedicated to organ transplantation. The police has registered a case against Dr K Ravindranath, Managing Director of the hospital, and his team of doctors who performed the transplant operation.

According to police sources, A Jagannatham, a Divisional Engineer with the Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) underwent a liver transplantation on April 22. The donor was Jagannatham's wife Prameela. It was stated that Jagannatham was recovering after the transplant operation, but he died on Wednesday, May 7.

In a complaint to the police, A Srinivasulu and A Uday Bhaskar alleged that their father died at the hospital due to negligence of the doctors. The police have registered a case under Section 304 A (negligence causing death) against the hospital's Managing Director Dr K Ravindranath and his team of doctors. The family had already paid Rs 10 lakh for the operation and had to pay a balance of another Rs 10 lakh.

Forensic experts conducted post-mortem on Jagannatham at the Osmania General Hospital mortuary on Thursday. A member of the forensic team said that they had noticed fungal infection. He also said that the doctors appeared to have delayed in attending on Jagannatham immediately after his condition had deteriorated.

Dr Ravindranath, however, said that fungal infection was common in liver transplantation cases. He also refuted the charge that the doctors delayed in attending on the patient.

Dr Patnaik, Vice-President of the hospital, has clarified that Jagannatham died due to multiple organ failure, extreme malnutrition and pre-existing renal dysfunction. In a statement, Dr Patnaik said that eventhough his family was informed about the complications, they still wanted the doctors to go ahead with the operation. A special team of surgeons was flown in from UK for the surgery, and on humanitarian grounds, the hospital had decided to bear the expenses of the donor surgery and after care as well as subsidise the package cost, Dr Patnaik said in the statement.

A Srinivas, one of the complainants, said if the case was too complicated and hopeless the hospital should not have undertaken the operation. " If we were told that the chances of survival were dim, we would not have agreed to the transplantation costing a whopping Rs 20 lakh. Besides, the patient was recovering after the operation that took place on April 22 and died only on May 7," he said.

It may be recalled that the hospital performed the first-ever liver transplantation in February this year on a doctor from Nashik, Dr Babu Saheb More. The donor was a theatre nurse from Chennai, who was declared braindead following a road accident.