`Hospital did not err' -- Somaiya dean

`Hospital did not err' -- Somaiya dean
Express News Service

Mumbai, March 21: Dr PS Shankar tried but could not defend his hospital, KJ Somiaya, where six patients lost vision after cataract surgeries. The dean painstakingly pointed out that the infection must have been come ``from some extraneous source'' and then went to reveal that the suspension order against opthalmology professor Dr SS Bhatti had been withdrawn - the norm is that the accused person is suspended during an inquiry.

The hospital authorities had called a press conference to clarify matters but it turned into a question-answer session but Dr Shankar, the dean, has no answers to most questions. In a curious turn, he said he had relied on hospital's internal inquiry committee reports and would go by them though it is common knowledge that the government-instituted inquiry committee has pointed out several lacunae in the procedures and methods adopted by the hospital in such surgeries.

Dr Shankar himself gave the hospital ``a clean chit'' on the following grounds:

* Samples of all drugs and solutions used during the surgeries to the microbiology department and tests showed that these were not the source of infection, he asserted.

* The operation theatre did not show the presence of any bacteria and therefore it is deduced that other patients in the ward or visitors carried the infection, he suggested

* Dr Sunita Moon, the eye surgeon, had regularly checked in on the patients in the post-op phase he claimed though patients haev repeatedly asserted that their relatives had noticed the redness in the operated eye and alerted the doctors

The government inquiry committee has, in fact, come to the conclusion that the hospital did not fumigate the operation theatre and equipment regularly and the hospital did not maintain records of such fumigation and took no action when the culture swabs showed positive signalling infection. Dr Shankar refused to accept these findings and preferred to toe the line of the internal inquiry; ``all was well with the OT'' he said.

The hospital had taken a decision to withdraw the supension order served on Dr Bhatti, he said, though the norm is to suspend the accused professional until an inquiry is completed. In this case, the government inquiry which is the more independent inquiry, had recommended action against the erring staff. Dr Bhatti, present on the occasion, did not answers to most questions either.

As if it were a selfless gesture, the dean then informed that the hospital management was considering paying compensation to the six patients who had lost vision. Considering that it took the hospital authorities more than a week after the infection had set in to inform the patients that their sight had been lost, it's hardly any wonder that the compensation issue is yet to be decided, say relatives of the patients.