File photo of All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi
Four-year-old Deepika Chandra had surgery to remove an inflamed kidney at the reputed AIIMS hospital in Delhi. A scan after the procedure uncovered a chilling fact - both her kidneys were missing.
"We did an ultrasound on March 17. That showed that both her kidneys are not there," her father, Pawan Kumar, told NDTV.
Deepika has been on a dialysis machine since March and doctors say a kidney transplant is the only option. Her father has filed a complaint with the police.
Pawan Kumar, a juice seller from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, says two days after the surgery on March 13, his daughter complained of severe pain, which is why doctors asked for an ultrasound.
"When we came, the left kidney was swollen and inflamed. Doctors advised us to get it removed. The right kidney was fine. When doctors told me both the kidneys were missing, I asked the doctor who operated on her. He did not answer my queries properly. I tried speaking to the AIIMS administration, after that I went to the Hauz Khas police," he said.
Mr Kumar claims that a test at AIIMS on December 8, months before the surgery, showed that the child's right kidney was fine.
He alleges that he was offered various reasons for the missing kidneys; one claim was that the right kidney had somehow shifted to the same side as the left kidney; another suggestion was that the child had only one kidney when she came to the hospital.
"There does not seem to be any foul play. We think it might be a case where there was only one kidney, but the ultrasound could not catch it," said Dr Amit Gupta, spokesperson of AIIMS.
"We are hoping that the parents will donate a kidney. We will bear the cost of the operation," he said.
The hospital has set up a panel of senior professors to investigate what happened.
"We are ready to give up our life for our daughter. But I need to know what went wrong," Mr Kumar said.