Raj govt finally wakes up to IV fluid deaths

Jodhpur, Feb 28: After the heart wrenching piece of news emerged out of Jodhpur in Rajasthan on the death of 13 pregnant women who were administered contaminated intravenous (IV) fluid, the authorities have finally woken up to the magnitude of the damage. It took a whole of 10 days before the Rajasthan government took any tangible action on the face of a controversy that has the capacity to go terribly out of hand.

The police arrested Sanjay Shah, an official in the Production and Quality Control department at the Indore-based pharma company, Parental Surgical India Limited that is accused of supplying the infected IV fluids to various government hospitals in Rajasthan.

While tempers were running high over the death of the women by excessive bleeding due to the faulty medication, the Rajasthan government also suspended a drug inspector and a store keeper of one hospital that used the contaminated fluid. The area drug inspector, Dinesh Taneja, and MG Hospital storekeeper, Kusum Acharya, were suspended with immediate effect.

The families of the victims were given Rs 5 lakh as compensation.

A case has also been registered under section 328 of IPC (causing hurt by means of poison with intent to commit an offence), against the pharma firm Parental Surgical India Private Limited, and its Jodhpur distributor, for allegedly supplying the contaminated IV fluid that is the obvious cause of the deaths.

In spite of seizing many thousand bottles of the contaminated fluid, the damage still remains unknown. Government sources say that the pharma company has been black listed. While an administrative inquiry is underway by the Divisional Commissioner of Jodhpur, another parallel inquiry is being done on ascertaining who was responsible for giving the go-ahead for supplying the drug from an unlisted company. Both the inquiries commenced on Sunday.

OneIndia News