Nanded hospital deaths: Committee gives clean chit to doctors, rules out medicine shortage

A government-appointed committee has given a clean chit to doctors at Shankarrao Chavan Government Medical College and Hospital in Nanded, India, following multiple deaths in early October. The report contradicts the findings of an earlier probe panel and states that there was enough stock of medicines at the time of the incident. The deaths had sparked outrage and resulted in the hospital's acting dean being booked for culpable homicide.

Mumbai: A state government appointed committee tasked with probing multiple deaths at the Shankarrao Chavan Government Medical College and Hospital in Nanded in early October has submitted its report, giving a clean chit to doctors and claiming there was enough stock of medicines at the time of the incident.

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The report, which was submitted to the state medical education department recently, contradicts the findings of a six-member probe panel set up immediately after the incident. While media reports indicated that 38 patients including several infants died in the first week of October, the panel’s report pointed towards a lack of resources and manpower at the hospital. But the Bombay high court, which took suo motu cognisance of the deaths, said the reasons given for deaths “cannot be accepted.”

Speaking to Hindustan Times after submission of the fresh report, principal secretary of the state medical education department Dinesh Waghmare said, “The report says that the doctors were not at fault and there was enough stock of medicines. But the hospital had many critical patients who were discharged from private hospitals due to a long weekend in the offing. There were many newborn children with low weight and some terminally ill patients as well.”

Waghmare claimed that medical colleges in the state had an average death rate of 10-15 patients per day. But deaths at the Nanded hospital spiked in early October – 24 patients including several infants died between September 30 and October 1 – because of the presence many serious patients and “babies who weighed less than 1.5 kilogram and were difficult to treat,” he said.

The new report spells out this argument further. It states that of the 24 patients who died that day, 17 were referred from private and peripheral government hospitals in critical condition with multiple comorbidities, whereas 11 were neonates on ventilator support.

The deaths had sparked a statewide outrage, and the hospital’s acting dean Dr Shyam Wakode and the paediatric department head were booked for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

As tempers ran high, Shiv Sena legislator Hemant Patil made Wakode clean the toilets as a mark of protest and was later booked under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Although the new report gives a clean chit to doctors and rules out shortage of medical supplies, medical education minister Hasan Mushrif had claimed the opposite after visiting the hospital in April.

“This is a situation of emergency. Apart from hiring doctors on contract, we are also trying to depute doctors from other hospitals and seeking help from private doctors,” Mushrif had told reporters in a press conference.

Meanwhile, deans of medical colleges in the state can procure 40% of their medical supplies on their own instead of the earlier 30%, while the rest will have to be purchased via the Maharashtra Medical Equipment Purchase Authority. The decision was taken by the state government in the wake of the deaths at Nanded, said Waghmare.