Eye surgery botch-up: Case registered against doctors

A case has been registered against doctors of a government-run eye hospital here following allegations that seven patients suffered loss of vision after undergoing cataract surgery, police said today.
Following a complaint, the case was registered against some doctors of the Sarojini Devi Eye Hospital under IPC section 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others), Humayun Nagar Police Station Inspector S Ravinder said.
He, however, said names of doctors were not specifically mentioned in the case.
"The matter will also be referred to the Telangana Medical Board," the Inspector told PTI.
Thirteen elderly patients, including women, contracted infection in their eyes with seven of them suffering partial loss of vision after undergoing cataract surgery at the hospital last week.

Jitender Reddy, son-in-law of one of the affected persons, Anji Reddy (70), alleged negligence on part of the doctors in the complaint, the Inspector said.

In the complaint, Reddy alleged that doctors of the hospital did not perform the surgeries properly and no precautions were taken. Besides, five follow-up surgeries were conducted on the patients without informing the matter to their kin resulting in vision loss, the police officer said.
However, doctors at the hospital have already ruled out any negligence on their part and claimed that the saline bottles used during the surgery were contaminated, resulting in infection in the eyes of the 13 patients, who were in the age group of 60-70.

Nearly 21 patients underwent cataract surgery in the hospital on June 30 and 13 had developed infections in their eyes, though immediately they were taken for re-surgery and six patients responded well to the treatment. But, seven cases are still under treatment, Rajender Gupta, Deputy Superintendent at the hospital, had earlier said.
"When we further investigated we found the 13 cases were operated upon in one operation theatre. It was found that fluid bottles used during surgery were contaminated with Klebsiella bacteria, which caused infection in the eyes of patients and resulted in partial vision loss to some of them," he said.

Describing the incident as "unfortunate", the Telangana government had yesterday said best treatment would be provided to the victims and action taken against those responsible for it.