Three pregnant women die hours after surgery in Sambalpur; Odisha govt orders probe

Reported by Ratnakar Bhoi
Burla (Sambalpur), Apr 11:

Tension ran high at the VSS Medical College and Hospital, Burla in Odisha’s Sambalpur district on Saturday after the death of three pregnant women, who died hours after Caesarean section yesterday.

The surgery was conducted at around 5 PM yesterday while the first death occurred at 10.30 PM. By 11.30 PM, all the three women had died.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak announced this evening that a high level committee will probe the death of the three pregnant women, OST adds from Bhubaneswar.

On the minister’s orders, the Director Medical Education and Training (DMET) has reached the hospital a little while ago.

The deceased have been identified as Sulochana Pradhan (28) of Chhualiberna village of Belpahar in Jharsuguda district, Kalpana Mahakud (26) of Banjibahali village and Kasturi Seth (25) under Bheden block in Bargarh district.

According to reports, after conducting Caesarean section on nine women, the doctors at the VSS medical college hospital had kept them in the observation room before shifting them to the ward within 24 hours. However, three of them died in quick succession after severe vomiting within five hours of the surgery.

The doctors have said that the death could be due to the side effects of medicines provided by the government to the hospital.

Following the incident, use of medicines supplied by the government in the Gynaecology ward of the hospital has been temporarily stopped from today.

“The post-surgery condition of the three women was all right. But their condition deteriorated suddenly after taking the medicines. After a bout of severe vomiting, they foamed and died suddenly. We suspect the death could be due to the reaction of the drugs administered on them,” Dr Lalmohan Nayak, assistant professor, Gynaecology, told the media.

He, however, claimed that there was no fault in the surgery as it was done by a team of expert surgeons.

“We had not thought of conducting post-mortem soon after the death of the three women. Now we realise that the post-mortem should have been done as all of them had the same symptoms that led to their sudden death,” he added.

“The three women were at the labour room where they were kept under 24-hour watch by the doctors. So I would never say that it was negligence on the part of the doctors. On the other hand, I cannot say whether the medicine administered to these women were of bad quality. We have kept these medicines, which would be sent for test at the Pharmacology centre of the hospital,” said Sambalpur BJD MLA Dr Raseswari Panigrahi”.