Health and Family Welfare Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao announced on Tuesday that he will discuss with Chief Minister Siddaramaiah the possibility of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) or a judicial probe after reports of five deaths of pregnant women at a hospital in Karnataka’s Ballari district in November. .
During zero hour in the Legislative Council, Rao admitted that the system had failed in response to demands for a probe from the opposition BJP and JD(S).
The victims, who underwent caesarean sections in November, reportedly developed complications related to the administration of IV fluids suspected to be of substandard quality. (https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/bangalore/karnataka-dgci-probe-ringer-lactate-ballari-maternal-deaths-9704642/) Rao said they have blacklisted West Bengal Pharmaceutical Company, the manufacturer and supplier. Drugs. He also informed the Drug Controller of India to stop the manufacturing activity and conduct an investigation.
“Five maternal deaths were reported on November 9, 10 and 11. Out of 34 C-section operations, the deceased women suffered from multiple organ failure and kidney failure. On November 14, an expert committee comprising doctors from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences was constituted. done and they submitted the report on November 16,” he said.
“In the report, they mentioned that the same batch of antibiotics was continued for all patients and the intravenous fluid Ringer’s lactate (RL) was changed from November 9. The batches were found frozen in March 2023 by the Karnataka State Medical Supplies Corporation Limited. KSMSCL) based on two batches found not to be of standard quality (NSQ) by Government Analyst, Drug Testing Laboratory, Karnataka,” he added.
“Subsequently, after some of these NSQ reports were challenged by the manufacturer and referred to Central Drug Laboratory (CDL), Kolkata by the competent court, CDL, Kolkata got these Standard Quality (SQ).
Rao said that drugs were used later after many agencies reported SQ, but on October 24 this year, the department gave approval to use 68 batches of RL. He said that if there is any adverse effect from the use of RL, the government is also collecting reports across the state.
Rao claimed that the doctors and staff of the Ballari District Hospital had not been negligent. He said that efforts are being made to find out where the mistake actually happened. “Some competent authorities have given a positive report to the drug manufacturer, but some have not. We need to investigate it deeply. According to the information that there is a majority of pharma mafia in the country, they export good quality drugs to other countries and sell low quality drugs in India. As this is a matter of innocent people’s lives, there will be no compromise in the investigation,’ he said.
He said that the government has provided Rs 5 lakh to the victim’s family and will continue to support them.
The government has suspended drug controller Dr Umesh, and a committee headed by the development commissioner has been set up to investigate possible lapses in supply of drug samples to listed laboratories and the role of KSMSCL officials in the entire incident. He said that a show cause notice has also been issued to the Managing Director of KSMSCL.
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