Two-year-old boy dies and baby has emergency surgery after botched circumcision in Western Australia

Seven-month-old infant spent night in an ICU fighting for life but has now returned home

File photo: The seven-month-old infant underwent emergency surgery in Perth Children’s Hospital in Nedlands (Getty Images)

A two-year-old boy died after a circumcision procedure went wrong in a hospital in Western Australia. The toddler’s seven-month-old brother, who also underwent the procedure, had to undergo surgery, the police said.

Circumcision is the surgical removal of the foreskin or the tissue that covers the head of the penis.

The children were taken to an emergency department at the Armadale Hospital in the suburb of Perth on Tuesday night following the botched procedure, Seven News reported. The two-year-old was declared dead on arrival.

The infant, however, was taken to the Perth Children’s Hospital in Nedlands for emergency surgery, where he was in a critical condition. He spent Tuesday night in an Intensive Care Unit but has since been released, according to Seven News.

Investigators, however, said the death is not being considered suspicious and that an investigation was underway.

“It can be confirmed the boy underwent a medical procedure at a registered medical centre prior to his death,” a police spokesperson said. “The death of the two-year-old boy is being treated as non-suspicious and a report will be prepared for the coroner”.

This isn’t the first time a circumcision procedure has gone wrong.

According to Dan Bollinger, who is a vocal opponent of circumcision in the US, “circumcision-related mortality rates are not known with certainty” but his 2010 study estimated that “more than 100 neonatal circumcision-related deaths occur annually in the United States —  about 1.3 per cent of male neonatal deaths from all causes”.

In Australia, fewer than 20 per cent of boys are circumcised, according to ABC News.

It said that in the 1950s, the rate of circumcision in the country was about 80 per cent. “The ratio of cut to uncut has since reversed: It’s estimated about 20 per cent of newborn boys are now circumcised,” the report added.