AMRITSAR: In the latest case of medical negligence to be reported from India, at least 60 people mostly poor have been blinded in botched cataract surgeries performed at the behest of an NGO at an eye camp in Ghuman village of Gurdaspur district in Punjab around ten days ago.
According to Rajiv Bhalla, a civil surgeon from Amritsar, the operations were performed under “severe unhygienic condition” after which, the eyes of all the 60 patients were found damaged permanently. The incident comes days after 11 women died and 34 were reported critical after undergoing “faulty” sterilisation surgeries at a government-organised family planning camp in Bilaspur district of Chhattisgarh.
TOI reports that civil and medical authorities said on Thursday, 4 December that of the approximately 60 individuals who lost their vision permanently, 16 persons belonged to villages of Amritsar and the rest were from Gurdaspur district. Confirming the incident, deputy commissioner Amritsar, Ravi Bhagat said, 16 affected patients had been admitted to the city ENT hospital under the supervision of assistant professor Karamjit Singh and are being provided free medical treatment.
The other patients are reportedly being cared for at ENT hospitals in Gurdaspur at the governments expense.Bhagat said a high-level inquiry has been ordered to find the doctors who performed the operations at the camp. The incident emerged when the 16 patients from Amritsar, approached the deputy commissioners office to lodge a complaint against the NGO and doctors concerned. Civil surgeon Rajiv Bhalla said that before organising the eye camp, mandatory permissions were required from the district Administration and Civil Surgeons of Gurdaspur and Amritsar but all the norms were not followed. According to him, all the affected patients were above the age of 60 and from poor economic backgrounds.
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