Kota Oxytocin Tragedy: Kin of victims seek financial help and better care

New Delhi: For two months, Mohan Lal Suman, the family's sole earner, formerly a driver with a ride-hailing service, has stayed by his wife's side, unable to work. To keep up with mounting costs, he sold his WagonR, his only real asset. "They gave her one injection and after that her condition started to worsen," he said. "There was no urine output at all, so she had to go on dialysis." She now undergoes dialysis every alternate day, he said.

Mohan Lal's wife Dhanni Suman is among the victims of the Kota Medical College case, in which cesarean deliveries in May alleged to have led to kidney failure and multiple maternal deaths pointing to spurious oxytocin injections.

He says hospital staff have told the family there is nothing more they can do. "They're telling us treatment is over from their side, take her home, just keep coming back for dialysis," he said.


"They've turned her into a living corpse and left us to deal with it. We weren't careless, we came in fine, just for a delivery. The injection they gave had no real medicine in it. What's our fault in this? Why should we suffer? Every dialysis day, her BP shoots up, she gets fever, the vomiting won't stop. How do we just take her home like this? Whatever savings we had went into that car now that's gone too."

Dhanni Suman and other victims, Ragini Meena, Pinki, Aarti Chandar, have jointly written a letter to Rajasthan chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma describing their fight for survival. They have asked to be referred to a premier institute such as AIIMS Delhi for kidney transplants and have asked for financial assistance.

The letter describes how the ordeal has wiped out their families' finances. One family pawned a wife's mangalsutra just to keep treatment and household expenses going, another sold off their house and taxi. With those resources exhausted the women have said that even feeding their children has become a struggle.

"Neither the medical college nor the district administration has offered any financial help," said Lokesh Meena, Ragini Meena's husband. "They have left our families to bear the economic, mental, and physical burden alone," he further told ET.

The women delivered between May 4 and 7 at Kota Medical College Hospital and JK Lon Hospital. Hours after childbirth, several stopped urinating and developed fluid in their lungs, leading to ICU admission in the nephrology department.

Five other new mothers are reported to have died from the same complications.

An investigation into the deaths has since led regulators to find that testing by the Rajasthan drug control department showed an oxytocin injection allegedly failed quality standards due to insufficient levels of the active ingredient.