Operation bungle: 12 lose eyesight
Several persons, most of them senior citizens, who were operated upon on January 11 at a cataract surgery camp in Barabanki district in Lucknow have lost their vision a few days after operation, reports Gaurav Saigal.
Several persons, most of them senior citizens, who were operated upon on January 11 at a cataract surgery camp in Barabanki district here have lost their vision a few days after operation.
An FIR has been lodged by the health department of Barabanki district against Kanpur-based NGO Maa Vashnavi Charitable Chikitsa Sewa Sansthan, that had conducted the camp. The organisation has even been blacklisted.
Nearly two-dozen patients have been admitted at the Balrampur hospital here with swelling in the eyes and loss of vision. “The vision loss seems to have happened due to infection. A team of three eye surgeons has been deputed to look after these patients,” said Dr MK Saxena, chief medical superintendent of the hospital.
The NGO was reportedly only given permission for conducting screening of patients at the camp and the operations were to be performed at the Primary Health Centre (PHC) in Trivediganj.
However, the operations were conducted at the camp site, a college, without informing the Medical Officer (In Charge) of the Trivediganj PHC or the concerned health officials.
A few months ago the state government had issued directives that no cataract operation could be done at camps. The organisations willing to hold such operative camps could only screen patients in the camp and then bring them to government hospitals for the operation.
“The NGO was permitted to hold the camp as per the government norms but it conducted the operations at the Saraswati Inter College without informing us,” said the Chief Medical Officer (Barabanki) Dr UK Gupta.
Had the organisation informed us about their decision to conduct the surgeries, we could have made at least some arrangement at the inter college to avoid post-operative infection, Dr Gupta added.
“My uncle was screened on January 10 and was admitted the same day. Doctors from Kanpur performed the operation the next day and on January 12 he was discharged. He was called again on February 25 for a follow up but on January 30 he lost complete vision in the eye that was operated upon,” said Suresh Bahadur, a relation of one of the victims.
