Taking serious cognisance of the four maternal deaths at Lata Mangeshkar Hospital, Civil Surgeon Dr Nivrutti Rathod has asked the hospitals not to perform any delivery till further order. These deaths took place in last 25 days. In the month of October, the hospital performed 104 deliveries of which four mothers died. Dr Nitin Deosthale, Medical Superintendent said, “Till September, we performed over 1,000 deliveries whose success rate is 100%. In October, we performed 104 deliveries and four women died unfortunately. One woman had fatty liver and the case was critical. The committee did not find any medical negligence.”

 

The four children born to these four mothers are doing well and they were discharged. Since the children of Madhya Pradesh died in Nagpur due to the contents of cough syrup, the team led by Dr Shriram Gogulwar of Deputy Director of Health Services office investigated the prescribed medicines too. The samples of those drugs have been sent to Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) to see whether the contents of the drugs administered to the mothers had anything suspicious. According to sources post mortem of one of the mothers was conducted, the details of the same are awaited. The relatives of the other three mothers did not consent for the post mortem. Deputy Director of Health Services (DDHS) Dr Shashikant Shambharkar too has constituted a 10-member inquiry committee. Of the four deaths of these mothers, first one took place on October 8.

 

The deaths occurred after an adequate gap. Though there was no complaint from anyone, as a part of policy, the hospital administration informed the authorities about these deaths. Maternal Mortality and Infant Mortality has become a sensitive issue and Government is handling it very carefully. In fact last year, Dr Ashish Deshmukh, Executive President of LMH, had launched a scheme under which several free services are being provided to pregnant women. DDHS said that the samples from the operation theatre, including instrument swabs, and others have been sent for microbiological examination.

 

Team of Dr Shriram Gogulwar, consists microbiologists, anaesthetists, surgeons, and civil surgeon office staff. The matter is being monitored by Zilla Parishad Chief Executive Officer Vinayak Mahamuni. Dr Deosthale told ‘The Hitavada’, “We have been taking all care as far as treatment of pregnant women are concerned. We have modernised our Operation Theatre too. These four deaths shocked us which we did not expect.”