Bankulla was part of team that attended to Rivers.
By The American Bazaar Staff
NEW YORK: Indian American anesthesiologist Dr. Renuka Reddy Bankulla, 46, has been named as among the three physicians attending to Joan Rivers during the botched throat procedure that led to her death.
Bankulla’s identity was revealed on Sunday as part of the team at Manhattan’s Yorkville Endoscopy during the August 28 procedure on Rivers, reported the Daily Mail. Rivers’ daughter Melissa is expected to file a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the Upper East Side clinic.
Bankulla, who was educated in India and trained in New York City, is no longer employed at the clinic, the New York Post reports.
Not only has Dr. Bankulla declined to speak to the press, she refused to cooperate with investigators from the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service during their probe into the matter.
She said only that she administered 120 milligrams of the anesthesia drug propofol and not the 300mg indicated in medical records. Bankulla claims she simply double clicked while entering the data to a computer, causing the error.
According to the Post, she also failed to indicate Rivers’ weight, which is a vital bit of information for choosing the amount of anesthesia to administer, the Mail reported.
‘At this point, something has gone wrong, the procedure must come to an end, and she needs to be resuscitated,’ a veteran paramedic not involved in the case told the Post.
The doctors failed to act when Rivers’ vital signs dropped even further, reports the Post.
Instead, with the 81-year-old’s blood pressure at 89/44 and her pulse at 54, the doctors administered propofol–the powerful anesthetic that led to the death of Michael Jackson.
According to doximity.com, Bankulla’s education and medical training is from Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Gandhi Medical College and Mount Sinai Beth Israel.
Her certifications and licensure information states: NY State Medical License1998 – 2015 and American Board of Anesthesiology.