The Bengal government on Saturday banned 10 drugs manufactured by a North Dinajpur company following allegations that its Ringer lactate intravenous solution killed a young mother at Midnapore Medical College and Hospital on Friday while leaving three others critically ill.
On Saturday, the number of puerperal mothers — “puerperal” refers to the period during childbirth or the next six weeks or so — affected by the solution had risen to eight.
Apart from the Ringer lactate IV solution, nine other drugs manufactured by the Chopra-based Paschim Banga Pharmaceuticals have been banned pending an inquiry. The company is a unit of Farista Vanijya Limited, which has its office in Siliguri.
The directorate of health services issued the order on a day a special investigation team led by the OSD, medical examination, Ashis Biswas, visited the hospital to probe the death of Mamani Ruidas, 30.
During the meeting with hospital officials, the probe team was surprised to learn that the intravenous solution had continued to be administered despite the state health directorate prohibiting its use on December 10.
DYFI supporters confront cops during a demonstration outside the Midnapore Medical College and Hospital in Midnapore on Saturday. Picture by Anshuman Phadikar
A senior doctor at a state-run hospital said: “Not only the Midnapore hospital but several other government health facilities, including some in Calcutta, were administering the fluid in contravention of the December 10 directive.”
Mamani’s death, after she had delivered a boy, forced the state government to wake up and realise the issue’s potential to cause damage. It then directed all hospitals and medical colleges in Bengal to immediately stop using the 10 medicines manufactured by the Chopra-based company.
A senior official at the state secretariat said the government’s alacrity also owed to the flak it had faced following the August 9 rape and murder of a junior doctor on duty at RG Kar Hospital.
“The health department is directly under the control of chief minister Mamata Banerjee. After getting singed by the RG Kar incident, the government did not want to be seen as reluctant to act in this case,” the official said.
Paschim Banga Pharmaceuticals came under the scanner following maternal deaths at a hospital in Ballari, Karnataka, in November-December last year.
A committee set up by the Karnataka government with experts from the state’s Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences said the Ringer lactate IV fluid supplied by the Chopra-based company was substandard, with 22 batches failing sterility, endotoxin and particulate-matter tests. This led the Karnataka government to blacklist the Bengal-based IV fluid manufacturer.
Sources said the report was shared with the Bengal government, which banned the Ringer lactate IV fluid on December 10. Before that, a joint team of the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation and the Karnataka and Bengal governments raided the Chopra unit between December 4 and 6.
On December 10, Bengal drug authorities pasted a notice on the gate of the Chopra factory saying the facility had been asked to stop manufacturing drugs till further orders.
“But when (Saturday’s) probe team first met the (Midnapore) hospital’s principal before visiting the obstetrics department’s CCU, it found that the medical college officials were unaware of the ban. As a result, the IV solution continued to be used without restriction,” a doctor at the Midnapore hospital said.
Asked whether the health directorate had informed the hospitals individually about the ban, an official said: “The order was emailed to all concerned across the state. It is the responsibility of the officials to ensure implementation, including stopping the supply through the CMOH (district chief medical officer of health) and the state government’s central stores. However, it appears there was gross negligence in enforcing the order.”
Asked about the negligence, the West Midnapore CMOH, Soumya Sarkar Sarangi, present during the probe team’s visit, declined comment. “Let the investigating team submit its report,” Sarangi told The Telegraph.
Several superintendents of state-run hospitals passed the buck to the state and district drug stores, saying they had supplied the banned medicines to hospitals to “clear the stocks”.
The state government’s probe team will now examine whether the banned IV fluids administered at the Midnapore hospital had been supplied before the December 10 ban and why, if so, the stocks were not withdrawn.
The Joint Platform of Doctors – a forum of government and private doctors in the state -- submitted a letter to chief secretary Manoj Pant demanding a judicial inquiry. It also sought the confiscation of all bottles of the IV solution with videographic documentation.
Its joint secretary, Punyabrata Goon, demanded a quality audit of all government-supplied medicines.
Among the eight taken ill is 22-year-old Nasrin Biwi from Keshpur in West Midnapore. She has been unable to feed her newborn and is on ventilation. Her health began deteriorating on Thursday.
A relative, Insan Ali, said: “We have taken the baby to Keshpur. A neighbour with a two-month-old baby is breastfeeding her, but the child keeps crying.”
Opposition parties from the BJP to the CPM have attacked Mamata in her capacity as health minister.