Silent killers are stalking Indian hospitals. Who is responsible?

On May 19, Sujata Ghadke was wheeled into an operation theatre in Pune, western Maharashtra.

A non-cancerous tumour near her intestine needed surgery.

Doctors at the private hospital had assured her husband, Seelove Ghadke, that it was not an uncommon procedure and Sujata had no other health complications to worry about.

The 4.5 cm tumour was “successfully removed” and a biopsy report confirmed that it was benign.

But as she lay on the hospital bed over the next few days, the 46-year-old homemaker complained of an acute headache and lower body pain. Ghadke flagged her condition to doctors several times, as their teenage daughter Shrushti looked on helplessly. She was given medicines for her pain.

In the early hours of May 25, Sujata fell unconscious.

“That was the last time I spoke with her,” Ghadke, 51, recollects, medical documents spread on his lap and the sofa at his one-storey Pune residence.

In the days that followed, Sujata’s family was told that she had contracted an infection. Doctors put her on antibiotics, conducted a battery of tests, and the hospital bill kept rising.

Ghadke borrowed money from relatives and paid Rs 7.75 lakh. “I earn Rs 25,000 a month at a private firm,” he said. “I don’t have a lot of money saved. But saving my wife...

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