IT Desk
Imphal Nov 19: At least 15 women who were subjected to botched operations had died and more are battling for their lives in the state of Chhattisgarh. Though the government had terminated the services of two doctors on the charge of negligence of duty other doctors are threatening to quit. They maintain that it was not a case of negligence of duty. The patients had died since the drugs supplied were sub standard and possibly spurious.
This is not for the first time that such avoidable deaths had taken place here and there. In Manipur too there had been suspicious deaths. Patients and their family members found fungi in drips or expired drugs were sold to them.
There might have been deaths as a result of administration of spurious drugs to the patients. However such cases go undetected in Manipur simply because there is no system to conducting post mortem on the bodies of such patients. It is seen that whenever a patient dies in the hospital or private hospitals a joint action committee is immediately formed. It will accuse the government of negligence and there are various demands. Sources said that a doctor has to come to an out of the court settlement. In case of private hospitals almost half of the amount is forked out just to ensure that there is no negative publicity since it will affect the business. It is a little concealed fact that the joint action committee extracts about Rs 15 lakh per patient. Since the activists of the JAC get their pound of flesh it is a lucrative business and there has never been a demand for establishing the cause of the deaths. Even if the patient died of cardiac arrest or any other fatal causes the blame still goes to the doctor. The system is such that the doctor cannot demand a post mortem.
There is also a growing concern over the marketing of the spurious drugs by dubious companies including fake ones. It is an all India problem and it cannot be said that only genuine and quality drugs are sold here. There had been some press statement pointing the fingers in this direction. However the matters were hushed up.
There are drug inspectors in all states whose duty is to ensure that spurious drugs are not sold to the gullible and unlettered persons. However in case of Manipur there have not been much of performances in this regard. Since the pharmacies get a carte blanche the lives of the people are at peril.
In absence of notification from the authority the doctors are also prescribing drugs whichever are brought to their notice. There is a hectic competition among the medical representatives to hook the doctors with various costly gifts. TV sets, washing machines, petrol, air tickets, IMFL bottles, mobile handsets— you name and all these costly items are doled out to the doctors. Since the quality and genuineness of the drugs are never questioned there is nobody to safeguard the patients.
This threat should not be underplayed or overlooked considering the fact that in the past some persons were executed for allegedly supplying spurious drugs.
