Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateel alleged on Monday at a review meeting here that two fatal heart surgeries were conducted under a government health scheme on patients who did not have heart ailments. The deaths were reported about a week ago.
Review meeting
He was reviewing the district vigilance and monitoring committee meeting to review the progress of centrally-sponsored rural development projects.
Raising the issue of the deaths of a woman and young girl from Panaje near Puttur after their surgery at Omega hospital here under the Vajpayee Arogyashree scheme, he said that he had collected all the documents regarding the cases.
The woman, who reportedly only had high blood sugar, was made to undergo heart surgery while the girl, about 9 years old, was suffering from depression and did not have any history of any heart ailment.
He did not agree with the District Health Officer that the victims had heart ailments.
Threatening that he would file a law suit against those responsible, especially the government officials, if they did not act in the case, he wondered whether the officials were attempting to ensure profit for private hospitals under the scheme.
The hospital has however maintained that there was no wrong-doing on its part and that surgeries were conducted after ascertaining the condition of the patients.
He said that there were seven more patients in Panaje whose health was in bad condition with one of them having been rendered immobile after surgeries that followed a health camp organised in the village in the scheme.
He asked the District Health Officer Ramakrishna Rao to visit each of them and get their condition checked. Expressing anguish that State government was not keen to compensate the victims, he demanded that all efforts should be made to give compensation.
He was also unhappy with the investigation by officials in the case though the deaths were reported a week ago.
Head: Arogyashree scheme: MP’s questions
Do you know hospitals ask Rs. 15,000 more for inserting “good stent?”
Why have you not acted against the Suraksha Arogya Trust which conducted the health camp at Panaje?
How could they diagnose a woman for heart ailment and later ask her husband to undergo surgery?
Who will compensate the victims of the two fatal heart surgeries?
Who confiscated the BPL cards after health camp and why were patients asked to come to hospital if they wanted them back?
Should health officials not monitor the implementation of the scheme?
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Quote
This is nothing but daylight robbery under the Vajpayee Arogyashree Scheme. Unfortunately it was done on the day Mr. Vajpayee was conferred the Bharata Ratna
– Nalin Kumar Kateel
There is a lot interest in the Vajpayee Arogyashree scheme but not so in other government schemes, according to Satish Kumpala, vice president of Dakshina Kannada Zilla Panchayat.
Nalin Kumar Kateel, Dakshina Kannada MP, quipped that this was because of the huge amount involved under the scheme.
Participating in the discussion, he said he had come to know about the patient undergoing a surgery without there being any health problem.
While Chief Executive Officer of the panchayat P.I. Sreevidya said the Health Department should monitor the implementation scheme. She and Mr. Kateel did not agree with District Health officer Ramakrishna Rao that they did not have any role to play in its implementation.
