HYDERABAD: Gandhi General Hospital is back in news and once again for wrong reasons. Twelve children admitted to the paediatric ward of the hospital developed chills and fever after they were administered injections on Saturday night. All of them, however, recovered by Sunday morning.
It was alleged that the children developed the reaction after hospital staff used drugs that had expired.
Health minister C Laxma Reddy took a serious note of the issue and ordered an inquiry.
Two staff nurses, Shobha and Sunitha, were suspended and a memo was issued to a postgraduate doctor, Naveen Singh, after an inquiry was initiated. However, doctors at the hospital refuted the allegations.
While the children recovered from the drug reaction by Sunday morning, family members of the children panicked. “The injection was administered to my son at around 7.30 pm on Saturday. After 10 minutes, he started shivering. It was followed by fever. He was taken to the ICU and after 15 minutes of administering another injection to him, the chills have come down, The fever came down after he was given a tablet,” said T Srinivas, father of Rishikesh (9) who was admitted to the hospital 15 days ago for an infection. Rishikesh’s legs and hands started contracting after the drug was administered to him.
Dr JV Rao, head of the paediatric department, said the administered medicines were antibiotics which are routinely given for infections among children and all the 12 children were stable now. “It was only chills and rigor which subsided within 10 to 15 minutes. All the children are stable,” he said.
An external inquiry was ordered into the issue at Gandhi Hospital. Pediatric professors - Dr George from Nizamabad and Dr Alivelu from Niloufer Hospital, were instructed to launch an enquiry on Monday and submit a report by evening of the same day.
Batch number of medicines, which were administered to 12 children, would be passed on to Telangana State Medical Services and Infrastructure Development Corporation (TSMIDC) as the medicines might have caused a drug reaction. “They will probe the drugs that were given, reaction to it and how long it took to subside. They are also going to check pharmacy stores. There is one big pharmacy in the cellar and then there are sub-stores. Senior nurses take medicines from the sub-stores. So the committee will verify on the medicines that were given,” Dr M Ramani, Director of Medical Education (DME), said. She said the batch numbers of the medicines administered to the children were recorded and not used.
Discrepancies alleged
Officials presented two vials to show the difference that one has stamp (Not for Sale) that was issued by Telangana government and the other did not. They said that a stampless vial was submitted by a person making allegations.
Expired drugs charge rebuffed
Dr JV Rao, head of pediatric department at Gandhi Hospital, said none of the expired drugs were administered to children. He said antibiotics like Amoxyclav and Vancomycin were given to children. Other medicines given to them include Cefrixone, Ranitidine, Phenobarbitone, Metronidazole, Meropenani and Cefotoxime. Dr Rao said that chills and rigours are not rare reactions and health condition of none of the children had deteriorated later.