18 months after 9-yr-old tribal girl’s death, Pen doctor booked for medical negligence in Maharashtra | Navi Mumbai News
NAVI MUMBAI: After 18 months of the incident of the death a 9-year-old tribal girl Khushbu Namdev Thakare, a class IV student of government ashram school in Varvane village and a resident of Tambdi village, Pen taluka in Raigad, allegedly due to adverse reaction of medicines administered to her during the leprosy screening campaign at Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Kamarli village, Pen taluka on Jan 22 last year, the Pen police have registered an FIR against the former medical officer at PHC on Tuesday July 28.The accused doctor was booked for alleged negligent treatment and failure to discontinue anti-leprosy medication despite warning signs contributed to the girl’s death.Sandip Bhosale, senior inspector of Pan said, “The accused identified as Mamta Madhukar Gajbe, the former medical officer of PHC at Kamarli was booked under BNS section 106(1) for the alleged offence of causing death by a negligent act not amounting to culpable homicide. Since, the accused had allegedly acted negligently without taking necessary medical precautions and without following the prevailing medical standards resulting in the girl’s health condition deteriorating and causing her death.“Despite registering an FIR on Tuesday, the deceased Khushbu’s father Namdev Thakare had sat on an indefinite hunger strike outside the Pen Sub-Divisional office on Thursday with support of activists Nanda Mhatre and Santosh Thakur and villagers as they claimed that FIR copy was not being provided to them.After the FIR copy was handed over and it was found that only one accused former doctor was booked for the offence, the agitators claimed that even other concerned officials and employees of the health department and Integrated Tribal Development Project (ITDP) should have been made accused.They alleged that they were also responsible for Khushbu’s death due to negligence by claiming that Khushbu was wrongly diagnosed with leprosy and given medication without their consent.Hence, the adverse medicine reaction damaged her kidneys eventually causing her death. Khushbu’s father Namdev even claimed that the doctors at MGM hospital, Kamothe had later informed them that she did not have leprosy.Meanwhile, in May last year, hundreds of tribal villagers had marched to the Pen tehsildar office and demanded to register a criminal case.The agitators had also demanded to provide Khushbu’s clinical autopsy analysis report to determine her exact cause of death, a judicial inquiry within a mandatory deadline.Also, compensation of ₹10 lakh to Khushbu’s family and fundamental changes in health reform policies for students of government ashram schools.According to the FIR registered suo motu by API Nilesh Rajput of Pen police station, Khushbu was suspected to have leprosy during a health screening campaign at her school in July 2024. She was formally diagnosed under the state’s Kusum (Leprosy-Free Maharashtra) campaign on December 16, 2024.She was given multidrug anti-leprosy treatment, including Dapsone, on December 18, 2024.On Jan 3 last year, Khushbu developed high fever and her father took her to PHC Kamarli, where blood tests were done.On Jan 10, she was again taken to PHC as her fever relapsed, when she was diagnosed with jaundice and referred to the Pen Sub-District Hospital.On January 16, she was referred to MGM hospital, Kamothe, where she was admitted to the Paediatric ICU, where she died during treatment on January 22 last year.The FIR states that a medical negligence committee report submitted by the Alibaug district hospital’s Civil Surgeon on July 8, 2026, mentioned that blood test results received on January 3 last year had already shown significantly elevated LDH, SGOT and SGPT levels, indicating liver cell damage.The committee concluded that Dapsone should have been stopped immediately, but found no evidence that the medication was discontinued.
