Diphtheria deaths: Opp. seeks mayor's resignation

New Delhi: The BJP-led NDMC House saw a huge uproar on Wednesday as Opposition members cornered the ru-ling party over the issue of deaths of 30 children in September at a civic hospital in North Delhi and sought resignation of the mayor and action against the guilty.

Both AAP and Congress members sought discussion over the issue from Mayor Adesh Gupta even as they blamed some members of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) of “making a mockery” of the tragic deaths by attributing it to fate.

The argument from both sides soon turned into heated exchanges and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) members, some holding placards, raised slogans and later trooped to the well of the House, chanting “mayor must resign”. Leader of Opposition and AAP’s Wazirpur councillor Vikas Goel and senior Congress leader Mukesh Goel led the attack against the mayor and alleged that health services had “deteriorated” in the NDMC hospitals, accusing the corporation of being “ill-equipped and ill-staff-ed” to handle such a situation.

The inquiry committee formed to probe the lapses that led to the deaths of 28 children due to diphtheria at Maharishi Valmiki Inf-ectious Diseases Hospital has found that there was not a single dose of ADS (serum) at the hospital since December last year till September 22 this year. This is  when already 14 deaths had been reported from there.

The committee, comprising doctors from hospitals like Kasturba Gandhi, RML, Maulana Azad Medical College (MAMC), and other senior officials, also said that the medical superintendent did not make adequate arrangements to ensure that pati-ents were administered with anti-diphtheria seru-m (ADS). It added that Mr Gupta failed to “timely communicate the factual position of non-availability of ADS to Commissioner, North DMC through immediate higher authority i.e. Director, Hospital Administration.”

The stock of 1,400 vials that the hospital had from Central Research Institute was completely exhausted by December 2, 2017.

“Had the medical superintendent of the hospital reported on time the alar-ming situation of non-availability of ADS (serum) to his higher authorities more attempts could have been initiated at the higher level to procure the serum from the private firm,” it said.

The stock of 1,400 vials that the hospital had from Central Research Institute (CRI), Kasauli was completely exhausted by Dec-ember 2, 2017 and no consignment was received till September 23, 2018, after which 200 vials were received.

Medical Superintendent (MS) Sushil Kumar Gupta was suspended by the authorities on September 26.

However, it also stated that the MS had started the tender process for pro-curing the medicine from private agencies, but neither the approval of higher authority was taken before inviting quotations nor the proposal was processed before higher authority after receiving rates from the firms.  

Diphtheria is an infectious bacterial disease that affects the throat and upper airways, and also produces a toxin that affects other organs. One more death earlier had been reported at the Delhi government-run LNJP Hospital.

The report was presented in a House meeting of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC), following which the Opp-osition Congress and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) dema-nded a resignation of the NDMC mayor.

Furthermore, on inspection of diphtheria wards, it was found that wards were poorly lit, proper isolation facilities were not available, intravenous infusion pumps and continuous cardiac - respiratory monitoring facilities were not available.