One more woman dies, Jodhpur toll reaches 15

JODHPUR: The toll in the maternity ward deaths in Jodhpur's Umaid hospital rose to 15 on Sunday with one more woman succumbing to post-delivery bleeding at the ICU of nearby MG government hospital. Another woman had died on Saturday and two others are still battling for life with doctors terming their condition highly critical.
Delu (22), a Nepali citizen, who had given birth to a healthy baby boy on February 21, died on Sunday.Like all others, she also had developed complications after the birth of her child at Umaid hospital. She was shifted to the ICU of MG Hospital following multi organ failure on February 26 and had to be put on dialysis. "Her condition worsened and she was put on ventilator on March 4 but we could not save her," said Arvind Mathur, superintendent of MG Hospital.
Of the 15 women who died in the incident, infants of 12 are alive.
Thirteen women had died till February 13 while five others were hospitalised with multiple complications. Among the five, two more died -- Delu on Sunday and one Morki Devi (22) a day before. Morki had developed complications after the death of her child in her womb in Umaid hospital. She was admitted to Umaid hospital on February 15.
All these 17 women, including the two in critical condition, had come to Umaid hospital between February 9 & 22. First three deaths occurred on February 13 while the hospital administration swung into action on February 17 after six women had died.
After that, the IV fluid, which was administered on these women, was tested in the local microbiology laboratory and was found to be contaminated. Shocked hospital administration put a check on the use of the said IV fluid on February 22 and lodged a case against the manufacturing company Parental Surgicals Ltd, Indore. Company manager (production & quality control) Sanjay Shah was arrested on February 28 and is cooling his heels in Jodhpur jail since then.
While the hospital administration held the company responsible for deaths, a probe team in its report given on last Friday blamed the doctors. Report suggested that doctors who administered the IV fluid, which allegedly led to the death of all the women, were neither trained to administer it nor had any protocols to follow.
They were junior doctors who weren't taught how these fluids need to be administered, according to the report of the three-member fact-finding committee of the Union health ministry.
The committee, comprising Himanshu Bhushan and Anjana Saxena from the health ministry and Dr Sudha Salhan, ex-HOD of gynaecology from Safdarjung Hospital, made another major finding the senior doctors of the Umaid Medical College and Hospital, where the incident occurred, mostly remained absent from classes because of which the junior doctors weren't taught basic medicine.
Even after the above startling revelations of gross negligence, state government has not initiated action against the hospital administration. The government had suspended two junior store staff after the recent visit of chief minister Ashok Gehlot.