The Mananthavady police have registered a case against a doctor and duty nurses of the Government Medical College Hospital, Wayanad, on charges of medical negligence after a hospital cloth was allegedly left inside a woman's body following childbirth.

According to the FIR, Dr Mounika and the duty nurses are booked under Sections 125 and 125(a) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The staff were allegedly negligent in the treatment and post-operative care of a pregnant woman, resulting in a surgical cloth being left inside her body. The woman is said to have alerted the nurses about discomfort, but her complaints were ignored. She later revisited the hospital on October 23, 2025, with complaints of abdominal pain and uneasiness, but claimed that no proper diagnosis or treatment was provided. The cloth allegedly came out of her body 75 days later.

As per the complainant, she delivered a baby at the hospital on October 20. She subsequently approached doctors with complaints of discomfort, but alleged that the medical staff did not take her complaints seriously and prescribed medicines to "clean the stomach", though the pain persisted. The woman said that on December 29, a piece of cloth came out of her body, after which she experienced relief. She produced the cloth before the expert panel during an inquiry. "I need justice. My repeated complaints that something was stuck inside my body were ignored," she told the media after submitting her statement.

Meanwhile, Wayanad District Medical Officer (DMO) Ancy Paul Jacob told Onmanorama that an inquiry by a three-member expert panel was underway. "I will submit the report to both the Director of Health Services and the Directorate of Medical Education. I am not in a position to comment on the merit of the allegations at this stage. We have to wait for the expert panel's report," she said.