Times of India: Bhubaneswar:
Wednesday, June 26, 2013.
At least
eight out of 29 patients, who had undergone kidney transplantation at SCB
Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack, have died, reply to an application
filed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed. The kidney
transplant unit at SCB started functioning on December 2, 2011.
Expressing
concern over the deaths, OdiyaYuvaMancha, a Cuttack-based social organization,
on Wednesday wrote to chief minister NaveenPatnaik and sought an inquiry into
the cases. The letter said negligence or defective operational procedures may
have led to the deaths.
Jogamaya Das
(37) lost her husband four months after kidney transplantation. The RTI reply
said Pradeepta Das, a contractor in Cuttack, died due to 'fungal pneumonia'.
Similarly, Sandhan Behera's father died six months after the operation.
"We take
utmost care and discharge patients only after a month, instead of the usual
practice of two weeks. They are made aware of the precautions to be taken at
home. But the poor patients often fail to follow the instructions and invite
trouble," said head of SCB urology department Datteswar Hota. He
attributed the deaths to infection like fungus. "The survival rate after
transplantation is more than 70%. The state government also provides the
patients free medicines for the next six months," he said, adding,
"Not a single patient died in the hospital and the donors are also doing
fine."
President of
the mancha Rohan Kumar Mohanty alleged the government did not have the count of
urologists working in government hospitals in the state.
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