More skeletons tumble out of C’garh closet
17 Nov 2014 4:09 AM IST
The botched Tubectomy surgery, which hit headlines after claiming 13 lives and leaving 138 critically ill in Chhattisgarh, has turned out to be more ‘brutal’ than was imagined before with traces of zinc phosphide found in Ciprofloxacin tablets given to all women patients who underwent the sterilisation surgeries. Worse, the medicine was alarmingly procured from a blacklisted pharmaceuticals company.
The probe revealed that zinc phosphide, commonly used in making ‘rat poison’ was found in Ciprofloxacin 500mg tablets, which was manufactured by Mahavar Pharmaceutical Private Ltd. The company has supplied sub-standard medicines that were administered to the victims of sterilisation surgeries.
Earlier, on March 21, 2012, Chhattisgarh’s Health Minister Amar Agarwal had informed the State Assembly that the company had been found guilty of selling ‘duplicate generic drugs’ and that ‘a case was registered against it on February 2, 2012 in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Raipur.’
Then the samples of medicines manufactured by Mahavar Pharmaceutical Private Ltd was sent to forensic science laboratory in Kolkata, which has alerted the state government of ‘banned substances’ in the drugs, which could put anyone’s life in danger if given during any surgery.
Despite that the state government continued to purchase drugs from the company which also owns a small factory operating from a residential colony of Raipur without even a signboard.
Defending himself, the state health minister claimed that the drugs were purchased by a local official at his individual level. Adamantly, he also refused to step down as health minister and passed the buck to others.
Already, director of a drug company Ramesh Mahwar and his son Sumit have been arrested under section 420 for cheating and their unit has been sealed. Also, Dr RK Gupta who had performed surgeries on 83 women in Bilaspur, is presently under police custody.
Meanwhile, the IMA expressed their dismay with the arrest of Dr RK Gupta. IMA said, ‘The camp was conducted by the state government where all infrastructures including supply of drugs were provided by them. The post mortem examination reports shows that there were no flaws in surgery and probable case of spurious drugs (especially Ciprofloxacin) being used in the above procedures is coming out during the probe.’
IMA also claimed that the spurious drug was substantiated by the fact that the patients have been bought to the hospital within 24 hours of the sterilization operations after consuming this drug. ‘It was further strengthened by the reports of other patients, who have taken Ciprofloxacin of same batch and have suffered from vomiting and other similar reactions,’ IMA claimed.
IMA has also demand that the state health minister should owe this responsibility and should resign immediately and already sent letters in this regard to state Chief Minister Raman Singh. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who visited the families of some of the victims on Saturday, accused the state government to cover up the botched sterilization deaths.
The government had failed to fulfill its responsibilities of providing safe and quality health care to the people. ‘It’s not just fake drugs but corruption in the government, which allowed such spurious procurements, that has claimed lives here,’ he said.
‘The government should have taken the responsibility rather than destroying evidences by burning stocks of medicines,’ he alleged.
The probe revealed that zinc phosphide, commonly used in making ‘rat poison’ was found in Ciprofloxacin 500mg tablets, which was manufactured by Mahavar Pharmaceutical Private Ltd. The company has supplied sub-standard medicines that were administered to the victims of sterilisation surgeries.
Earlier, on March 21, 2012, Chhattisgarh’s Health Minister Amar Agarwal had informed the State Assembly that the company had been found guilty of selling ‘duplicate generic drugs’ and that ‘a case was registered against it on February 2, 2012 in the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate Raipur.’
Then the samples of medicines manufactured by Mahavar Pharmaceutical Private Ltd was sent to forensic science laboratory in Kolkata, which has alerted the state government of ‘banned substances’ in the drugs, which could put anyone’s life in danger if given during any surgery.
Despite that the state government continued to purchase drugs from the company which also owns a small factory operating from a residential colony of Raipur without even a signboard.
Defending himself, the state health minister claimed that the drugs were purchased by a local official at his individual level. Adamantly, he also refused to step down as health minister and passed the buck to others.
Already, director of a drug company Ramesh Mahwar and his son Sumit have been arrested under section 420 for cheating and their unit has been sealed. Also, Dr RK Gupta who had performed surgeries on 83 women in Bilaspur, is presently under police custody.
Meanwhile, the IMA expressed their dismay with the arrest of Dr RK Gupta. IMA said, ‘The camp was conducted by the state government where all infrastructures including supply of drugs were provided by them. The post mortem examination reports shows that there were no flaws in surgery and probable case of spurious drugs (especially Ciprofloxacin) being used in the above procedures is coming out during the probe.’
IMA also claimed that the spurious drug was substantiated by the fact that the patients have been bought to the hospital within 24 hours of the sterilization operations after consuming this drug. ‘It was further strengthened by the reports of other patients, who have taken Ciprofloxacin of same batch and have suffered from vomiting and other similar reactions,’ IMA claimed.
IMA has also demand that the state health minister should owe this responsibility and should resign immediately and already sent letters in this regard to state Chief Minister Raman Singh. Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, who visited the families of some of the victims on Saturday, accused the state government to cover up the botched sterilization deaths.
The government had failed to fulfill its responsibilities of providing safe and quality health care to the people. ‘It’s not just fake drugs but corruption in the government, which allowed such spurious procurements, that has claimed lives here,’ he said.
‘The government should have taken the responsibility rather than destroying evidences by burning stocks of medicines,’ he alleged.
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