Sangrur, February 23
Though the inquiry reports prepared by two independent agencies — the PCMSA and the Association for Democratic Rights Punjab, have held Dr S.S. Joshi, SMO, Moonak, who performed the operations, responsible for the Khanauri tubectomy tragedy but the three-member committee formed by the Sangrur Civil Surgeon has adopted a vague method in its inquiry report conclusion for not indicting any particular person for the lapses.

The committee, headed by Dr Suresh Goyal, district Family Planning Officer, was formed by Dr C.P. Bansal, Civil Surgeon, to probe the cause of deaths of two women operated upon for tubectomy on December 4 last year at a camp in the Mini Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Khanauri village in this district.

Reshma of Banarsi village and Sheela Devi of Shahpur Therri village expired after three-four days of operations while remaining nine women were admitted to the Sangrur Civil Hospital on December 7 and 8 in a serious condition. Seven of them were later shifted to Rajindra Hospital, Patiala, for further treatment.

The three-member committee in its inquiry report has concluded that it seemed that the death of Reshma and Sheela Devi was caused due to the administration of injections by Mr Dev Raj, the husband of Ms Roseleen, ANM. In the remaining nine cases, more or less all women were infected due to improper sterilisation, or proper check-up.

The committee in its report has also mentioned that on December 9, 2000 when they checked the operation theatre, at the Mini PHC at Khanauri, they found insanitation in the theatre and operation equipment were in very bad condition while there were 80 sheets, 185 gloves and disposal masks in large quantity in the store.

As per the report, Mrs Manwinder Kaur, staff nurse, said during operations doctor and staff nurses did not change their gloves and after the performance of each operation for tubectomy all members of the operation team washed their hands in a single bowl, filled with hot water. After washing hands, they started the next operation.

Mr Ram Gopal, a Class IV employee, who performs sterilisation work, told the inquiry team that he performed the sterilisation work for sometime before the start of operations. He also complained that sterilisation watch also did not work properly.

Dr S.S. Joshi, who performed the operations, had put the entire responsibility of looking after the sterilisation work on Dr Parampal Singh being in charge of the mini PHC at Khanauri. Dr Joshi said pre-operative check-up was also done by Dr Parampal Singh. Dr Joshi had also stated there was a possibility of anaphylatic shock in the deaths of Reshma and Sheela Devi as Dev Raj had administered injections on them. He also stated that improper sterilisation of the equipment might be the cause of infection to some patients.

As per the statements of Dr Parampal Singh, he performed pre-operative check-up of the patients and assisted Dr Joshi during operations.