Daijiworld Media Network - Dubai

Dubai, May 13: A woman lost her life during a hip replacement surgery at a private hospital here on May 9. The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) is looking into a complaint filed by her husband, Gulf News has reported.

Betty Rita Fernandes (42) is the deceased woman. She was the mother of a teenage boy and a girl.

The hospital has said that it has launched an independent review into the case.

“The case is currently under investigation. The DHA looks into every single case of alleged negligence or malpractice stringently. The Health Regulation Sector follows due process in line with international standards to investigate such cases, where a committee of subject matter experts is formed to investigate the case. Deemed action is taken according to the merit of each case.” informed Dr Marwan Al Mulla, CEO of Health Regulation sector at the DHA in a statement to Gulf News.

As per information available, Betty Rita Fernandes had a congenital issue and her hip was slightly displaced when she was born. According to her family, she decided to go in for a hip replacement surgery at a private hospital.

On the morning of Thursday, May 9, Fernandes was admitted for the two-hour left hip replacement surgery. She also went through pre-surgery checks and had cleared those.

However, during surgery she developed complications and her family was asked for consent for a second surgery with a vascular and general surgeon after the woman had internal bleeding in the pelvic area.

The patient’s family was informed that some kind of packing was placed in the pelvis area to reduce the bleeding after which the patient was to be moved to the ICU and in transit a CT scan was to be carried out.

However, soon after, Fernandes died in the operating theatre in the evening nearly eight hours after she was first wheeled inside the operating room.