Doctors mistakenly amputate baby’s arm and shoulder joint

A criminal case was filed in the Krasnodar region of Russia against a group of doctors, who caused severe bodily damage to a little girl aged only two months. The surgeons mistakenly amputated the girl’s right arm.

Photo: Doctors mistakenly amputate baby’s arm and shoulder joint

The little baby girl started coughing and suffocating on December 28. Natalia Kulivets, the baby’s mother, took the child to a local pediatrician. The doctor examined the child and recommended profound medical examination at the region’s central hospital. The baby was diagnosed with whooping cough – a serious infectious disease accompanied with interruptions of breath and possible cramps. The disease is treated with large doses of antibiotics and special immunoglobulin (antibodies).

The baby was taken to Children’s Infection Hospital of the Krasnodar region on December 31. The little girl, Sofia, was placed in the reanimation department. The catheter on the baby’s left arm stopped functioning at 6 a.m. Doctors decided to fix the medicine dropper on the child’s right arm, but the needle went through a vein and an artery. The artery was obstructed with blood clots as a result of the procedure.

The child’s parents were not informed about the complication of the unsuccessful catheterization and possible consequences that could follow. An urgent operation would have saved the baby, but the doctors decided not to do anything. They realized the child’s severe condition only on January 2, when the baby’s fingers started to turn black as a result of gangrene.

On January 2 the girl was diagnosed with thrombosis of brachial artery on the right arm. Surgeons took efforts to save at least a part of the baby’s arm, but it was too late. As a result, the arm was amputated together with the shoulder joint, NTV reports.

The girl’s parents are still unable to cope with the state of shock. The baby’s father says that the medics were too self-confident and negligent with their decisions: “No one wanted to deal with our baby because it was the New Year’s time,” the girl's father Viktor Kulivets said.

The governor of the Krasnodar region, Alexander Tkachev, ordered to dismiss the doctors who became guilty of the tragedy.

Based on russian media news reports

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
Pravda.ru