A drug inspector has filed a complaint against Fortis Hospital, Mohali, in a local court, holding the hospital staff, who were about to administer an “expired” injection to a patient Balbir Kaur in April 2012, responsible.
The drug inspector had lodged the complaint on July 22 and had named Col HS Chehal (retd), director of the hospital, Dinesh Chandra, in charge pharmacy, Seema, pharmacist, and Monika Thakur, staff nurse, in his complaint.
The inspector said the hospital had contravened Rules 65 (17) and 110 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945, which was punishable under sections 27 (d) of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940.
During the inquiry, the drug inspector had sought reply from the hospital about the four persons whose names he had mentioned in his complaint. The hospital in its reply had said that the injection was issued due to negligence.
Meanwhile, civil surgeon Neelam Bhardwaj said she was appointed recently and was not aware of the details of the case.
The report had been submitted in 2012 to the director (health and family welfare), the inquiry conducted by the then civil surgeon Dr Usha Bansal and a team said that at the time of issuing any drug from the store, it was the storekeeper’s duty to check the expiry date of the drug. After that, the duty staff were responsible to check it before giving it to patient.
{{/usCountry}}The report had been submitted in 2012 to the director (health and family welfare), the inquiry conducted by the then civil surgeon Dr Usha Bansal and a team said that at the time of issuing any drug from the store, it was the storekeeper’s duty to check the expiry date of the drug. After that, the duty staff were responsible to check it before giving it to patient.
{{/usCountry}}But in the case of Balbir Kaur, a US citizen, nobody had checked the expiry date of the drug. The report also observes that there had been negligence on the part of Fortis Hospital in every aspect in the case.
Kanwarjit Singh, complainant and son of Balbir Kaur, had noticed that a hospital nurse was about to administer an injection which had expired around a year ago to his mother on April 6, 2012.
A four-member committee, comprising senior medical officer Dr Rajiv Bhalla, Dr Jaswant Singh, Dr Navjot Kaur and Sudha Dehal, had later inquired into the complaint.