Kathmandu, May 6

A five-year-old girl died this morning after one of the on-duty nurses at Shahid Gangalal National Heart Centre allegedly transfused her with wrong blood group while conducting heart surgery.

Akriti Kumari Shah from Sarlahi had ‘O positive’ blood group, but she was transfused with ‘A positive’ blood group during surgery.

Akriti had a heart ailment (double-chamber right ventricle) since birth.

She was admitted to the hospital on April 26 and doctors suggested surgery.

According to her kin, Shah underwent surgery on April 30. “Doctors sought ‘A positive’ blood and we arranged it,” said Surendra Yadav, Akriti’s neighbour.

However, Akriti’s parents were not allowed to see their daughter for one week after her surgery, Yadav told THT.

He said today they were told that she had died.

“Doctors claimed that she was under the effect of anaesthesia for one week,” said Yadav.

“Today doctors told us to take her body. How can we do that without knowing the cause of her death?” asked Yadav.

THT was in possession of documents that show Akriti’s blood group was ‘O positive’, but she was transfused with ‘A positive’ blood.

Jotendra Sharma, executive director at the hospital, said a probe committee had been formed to investigate the cause of Akriti’s death.

He claimed that Akriti underwent a complicated open-heart surgery. “There are 20 to 50 per cent chances of death of a patient in such surgeries,” Sharma added.

He said it was the duty of lab technicians to match the blood group, not surgeons’.

He said patients in such surgeries were tranquillised for at least two days.

He said the probe would show who was at fault.

He claimed that till now the hospital had conducted 20,000 open heart surgeries, of which one-third involved children. “We have conducted such complicated surgeries on nearly 3,000 children,” said Sharma.

However, these figures mean nothing to Akriti’s parents — Pinkey Devi Shah and Ram Prabesh Shah — who were so shocked to learn of their daughter’s death today that they fell unconscious.