Hospitals

BHU Hospital OTs closed after 3 post-surgery deaths

Death of three patients and sharp deterioration in condition of six others in past three days resulted in closure of all 23 operation theatres (OTs) of SSL Hospital of Banaras Hindu University on Thursday.

Rajeev Dikshit ,
TNN

Updated On Jun 9, 2017 at 08:19 AM IST

VARANASI: Death of three patients and sharp deterioration in condition of six others in past three days resulted in closure of all 23 operation theatres (OTs) of SSL Hospital of Banaras Hindu University on Thursday.

The OTs will remain closed for three days till the seven-member committee, constituted on the directives of BHU VC G C Tripathi, completes its investigation and finds the cause of deaths. An injection, which the patients purchase from market for anaesthesia, is under scanner.

SSL Hospital medical superintendent OP Upadhyaya told TOI that the doctors of urology department alerted him and senior hospital authorities, after a cancer patient Radhey Shyam Tripathi, Meraj Ahmed and Arti Devi died within three days after surgery. Sharp deterioration was also noticed in health of Maya Devi (mouth cancer patient), Madhu, Prachi Tiwari and Usha Singh and they were shifted to ICU on Wednesday night. Their condition is now stable. Suman Devi, Shiv Prasad Gupta and some other patients were shifted to ICU as a precautionary measure.

Upadhyaya convened a meeting of doctors on Thursday morning. It was decided to stop surgery in all the 23 OTs. The doctors are advised to conduct surgeries only in very urgent cases where anaesthesia is not required, he said. A seven-member committee has also been constituted to detect the reason that led to casualties. He said that an injection, which is used for anaesthesia and patients purchase it from outside, is suspected to be causing serious harm to the patients. The officials said that if needed, the samples of particular batch of injections would be sent for laboratory test.

He denied that there had been any problem with condition and equipment of the OTs. The committee constituted for investigation will also check the OTs, he added. The committee has been asked to submit its report within three days. The investigation team is headed by SK Gupta while P Ranjan, SK Mathur, MA Ansari, PN Tiwari, SK Singh, Dr Vikas Agrawal and MK Gupta are its members.