Botched surgery leaves 15 with eye infection

Suman Bhatnagar
Ambala, December 1

Over a dozen patients complained of infection in their eyes after undergoing operations conducted by Saw Kalyan Charitable Hospital at Ambala Cantt on November 24.

The patients were referred to the PGI in Chandigarh following the infection.

Haryana Health Minister Anil Vij has ordered a departmental probe into the incident.

The matter came into light on Monday when relatives alleged that a patient operated upon has lost his vision. The doctor at the hospital, Charanjit Singh, had operated 15 patients on November 24. As per reports, on November 26, two patients complained of infection, after which the doctor called all the patients for examination.

During the check-up, the doctor noticed that most of the patients, who had undergone surgery, were suffering from infection. He took all the patients to PGI.

Meanwhile, the hospital has been sealed. Dr Charnjit, a resident of Punjab, was not available in the hospital.      

Ambala Senior Medical Officer (SMO) Dr Vinod Kumar Gupta said the charitable society 'Sarv Kalyan Sewarth Samithi' at Maheshnagar had no mandatory clearance from them to hold the camp.

He said: “They had applied for permission in 2013, but it was denied by us as we first wanted to conduct an inspection of the hospital and get details of the surgeons who will conduct operations."

"However, without permission they conducted the camp. Our team had raided the hospital but it is locked. Case had been registered in this connection by the police regarding negligence on the complaint of the SMO," he said.

Dr Gupta said: "These societies hold such camps as they get huge incentive amounting to Rs 1,000 per person operated upon."

Sources at PGI said the condition of the eyes of the patients, who were operated upon, is bad.

A similar incident had taken place at Samalkha in Panipat in March in which 13 patients suffered vision loss.  —With PTI inputs