Experts say drug theory a sham, hint at cover-up

Nearly a month after 16 women died following botched up sterilisations in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur, the state government’s theory that poisoning was the principal cause of death has come under sharp criticism.

Top experts under the banner of Population Foundation of India, which recently conducted an investigation into India’s worst female sterilisation camp tragedy, found the state was unduly pushing drug poisoning as the reason for deaths.

 

“Infection is the real cause. The fact that women started to die within 48 hours of the procedure is enough to show that poison wasn’t the main cause. There’s an attempt at cover up things because the state doesn’t want to admit to gross lapses  at the operation theatre where women were operated upon,” says Alok Banerjee, who drafted India’s quality control manuals for sterilisations in 2006 following a Supreme Court order.

 

Forensic and toxicology experts point out why the drug poisoning theory seems a sham. An adult woman should have consumed 4.5 mg poisonous zinc phoshide to have died. Chhattisgarh Government has been maintaining that Ciprofloxacin 500 mg antibiotic capsule given to women contained rat poison – zinc phosphide — and that this was proved by the death of a rat which was administered the same capsule in a state lab.

 

Toxicology experts however ask – can a 500 mg Ciprofloxacin capsule contain 4.5 gm zinc phosphide? “Even if you assume the entire Ciprofloxacin capsule administered to victims was zinc phosphide, a woman needed to have had 9 capsules to die. But victims took just one,” says Soma Sharma of PFI.

 

Public health experts say the state has instructed its health staff to lie to anyone arriving in Chhattisgarh for an independent probe into sterilization deaths between November 8 and 10 at Nemi Chand Hospital in BIlaspur.

 

“All docs informed us that among women who died there were signs of a drug poisoning. However at Apollo, where 23 women are still in critical care, few cases showed raised levels of pro calcitonin, suggesting septicemia, a life threatening bacterial infection. Also women’s blood pressure could not be traced when they arrived at the hospital post the procedure. That also indicates infection putting the onus on the state,” Poonam Muttreja Executive Director, PFI said, demanding all medical reports of victims be made public.

 

The fact finding team found that the doctor in question didn’t change gloves while conducting tubectomies on 83 women in 90 minutes spending a minute on each. The OT had cobwebs and termite infestation and the surgeon had one laparoscope for surgeries. It takes 20 minutes to sterilize one laparoscope.