Only one of 3 indicted staffers booked so far

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, October 11

The local police have so far booked only one of the three blood bank employees indicted by a probe committee for negligence in the wrong blood transfusion incident at Bhai Mani Singh Civil Hospital here.

Naujawan Welfare Society, a local NGO, has alleged the police had failed to act against the remaining two employees and that there was no reference of the second patient, a woman, who was given HIV positive blood in May.

In gross negligence on part of the blood bank officials, a minor girl and a woman were given HIV positive blood in two separate incidents at the hospital.

The NGO, through its counsel HC Arora, has decided to move the Punjab and Haryana High Court in the matter.

Baldev Singh Romana, medical laboratory technician at the blood bank, Civil Hospital, has been booked under Sections 269 (negligent act) and 270 (malignant act) of the IPC at Kotwali police station on the Civil Surgeon’s complaint.

In the complaint, it was alleged that on October 3, seven-year-old thalassaemia patient was given blood of an HIV positive donor and accused Baldev knew about it.

He had told the probe committee he never reached out to the donor, but the panel found out that the employee did not have cordial working relations with blood transfusion officer and colleague MLT Richa Goyal, due to which to settle a score, he called the HIV positive donor from his mobile phone asking him donate blood.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu had ordered a probe committee to investigate into the matter. A three-member inquiry committee was constituted by the Health Department, which in its report found the employees guilty of gross negligence.

Acting on the report, the Director, Health and Family Welfare Department, issued suspension orders of three employees — blood transfusion officer Dr Krishma Goyal, and medical lab technicians Baldev Singh Romana and Richa Goyal. The Civil Surgeon had written to the SSP seeking an FIR into the incident.

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