Botched surgeries: Chhattisgarh HC orders seizure of banned medicines

BILASPUR: The Chhattisgarh High Court has directed the state government to seize tainted and sub-standard medicines including Ciprocin-500, which have been banned after botched sterilisation surgeries here claimed 13 lives and left many critical.

The court also ordered to identify those people who have consumed these prohibited medicines and conduct health check-up camps for them.

A division bench of Justice TP Sharma and Justice Inder Singh Upoweja gave these directions yesterday while hearing an intervention petition filed by Congress leader Manishankar Pandey, petitioner's lawyer Satish Verma said.

The HC had observed that those who have consumed Ciprocin-500 tablets and other banned medicines whether at sterilisation camps or elsewhere needed to be identified and subjected to medical examination.

The court further sought immediate seizure of banned medicines from all the places wherever it was distributed earlier, Verma said.

Besides, Chhattisgarh State Legal Services Authority has also been directed by the court to conduct camps in villages and use various means of communication to spread awareness among people regarding their health.

Earlier, the HC had taken suo moto cognisance of death of 13 women after tubectomies at state-run camps in Bilaspur and issued notices to Centre, state government and Medical Council of India seeking a report over the incident.

The court had appointed two advocates Salim Kazia and Sunita Jain as amicus curiae (friend of the court) to assist it on the issue.

On Monday, the state government submitted an interim report on the incident and sought more time to submit a detailed report.

Similarly, the Centre also requested for additional time to file a report on it while MCI pleaded to submit its findings after an investigation on November 25, Verma said.

Next hearing on the issue has been scheduled for December 22, he added.

According to Health Minister Amar Agrawal, the medicines which were provided to the affected women at the tubectomy camps were found to be substandard and traces of poisonous substances were also found in it.

While 12 of the 83 women, who were operated upon at Nemichand Jain Cancer and Research Centre at Pendari village of Takhatpur block on November 8, died, a protected Baiga tribe woman was the lone casualty at Pendra block, where around 56 women underwent surgeries at three different camps on November 10.

Over 130 women had fallen ill after the surgeries.