BELAGAVI: Leader of Opposition in Assembly R Ashoka has demanded a judicial probe into the large number of maternal mortality cases registered from various parts of Karnataka in the recent days.
While terming the deaths “extremely serious,” Ashoka said that the judicial probe into the deaths should be taken up under a sitting judge. Hitting out at the Congress State Government, former DyCM and BJP MLA Dr CN Ashwath Narayan demanded that a criminal case be filed against Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao for the deaths and called the state government a “kolegaduka sarkara” (murderer government).
While demanding the government to take the issue to its logical end, Ashoka, during a debate on maternal mortality under Rule 69 in the Assembly, said that the pharma companies that supplied substandard drugs should face stringent action. A new law should be promulgated to permanently halt the companies that were supplying substandard medicine, he said, adding, “The government should give a living guarantee to the mothers.”
Initiatives should be taken to make people trust government hospitals, Ashoka said. Not only in Bellary, but many mothers had died during childbirth in Davanagere, Chitradurga, Raichur, and Belagavi in recent days, he claimed. He said the health department had turned into an “unhealthy” department in the state.
Ashoka appealed to the government to make the hospital doctors accountable for the deaths for passing the buck when it came to the deaths of mothers and infants in the hospitals. He feared that there was also a rising menace of quacks in the state.
He said the Lokayukta exposed several serious lapses in the state-run KC General Hospital in Bengaluru with regard to treatment of pregnant women. He said the government seemed to have gotten caught up in a medical mafia, and there were no drugs available to meet the demands of patients in government hospitals. During the marathon discussion, Dr CN Ashwath Narayan held the government directly responsible for the deaths.