Chennai police have charge sheeted a female doctor for trying to kill her 82-year-old father, a heart patient on medical support, in an ICU. She had pulled the plug on him after getting his thumb impression on a set of papers. This did not go unnoticed - the incident was caught on CCTV camera.
Pushpa Narayan of The Times of India reports that though the incident happened in September 2015 and her father had died two months later, the charge sheet was only filed recently, booking Dr Jayasudha Manoharan for attempt to murder.
The CCTV footage shows, Dr Jayasudha, visiting her father along with her two sons at the Aditya Hospital, which her brother Jayaprakash owns in Kilpauk. After getting the nurses to vacate the room, Dr Jayasudha’s son Dr. Hari Prasad takes out a document from underneath his shirt and pulls out an ink pad and takes his thumb impression. Taking out a bottle of spirit from her person, Dr. Jayasudha proceeds to wipe the ink from his thumbs.
What happens next is shocking. She removes the line delivering life-saving medicines through a vein in the neck. The CCTV footage shows blood trickling down onto the hospital floor. As nurses and a doctor rush in, she says something and rushes out, with the hospital staff running behind her.
In February this year, her brother lodged a complaint with the Tamil Nadu State Medical Council alleging that Dr Jayasudha, her husband Dr U Manoharan and their son Dr Hari Prasad tried to kill his father Dr E Rajagopal. He demanded that they be removed from the medical rolls. Dr Jayasudha's family owns Manoharan Hospital in RS Puram, Coimbatore. He then sent unedited and edited versions of the CCTV footage along with a copy of the FIR filed by the city police in January.
Police initially filed cases of trespassing, extortion and criminal intimidation against the family, but later altered them to attempt to murder in the charge sheet.
G3 police inspector Thiyagarajan told TOI, “When we first got the complaint, we thought it was sibling rivalry and extortion case. Further inquiries revealed there was an attempt to murder."
In his complaint to the council, Dr. Jayaprakash said the September 5, 2015 incident led to a gradual decline in his father's health and he died on November 2, 2015. “Jayasudha took my father's thumb impression, wiped the ink from his fingers and unscrewed the IV line so he did not get the lifesaving drug. There was slow but steady reverse flow of the blood. The ICU nurses caught it just on time to save him," he said.
The state medical council, which asked Dr Jayasudha and her family to appear before a committee on July 22, said it would hold an independent inquiry to find out if they misused their medical knowledge.
According to sources, the police had recorded Dr. Rajagopal's statement a few days after the incident in the ICU, which would be crucial to the investigation.