Opposition seeks murder charges on health minister, officials, doctors

HYDERABAD: Hospital-acquired infections continue to cause havoc in Telangana government’s hospitals despite the so-called lessons learnt after the death of four women who underwent family planning operations in Ibrahimpatnam in August last. The deaths of two women who died on January 12 after delivering their babies at the Malakpet Government Maternity Hospital have yet again proved that the state health department setting up hospital infection control committees after the Ibrahimpatnam deaths have remained as unproductive as its promises that Ibrahimpatnam-like incidents will not recur. Meanwhile, amidst the ongoing crisis of women who underwent surgeries at the Malakpet hospital currently recuperating at the Nizams Institute of Medical Sciences, and two of them in critical condition, there are demands that the highest in the health department, starting with the health minister T. Harish Rao, top officials, and doctors at the hospitals, be booked under murder charges. The BJP state secretary Dr S. Prakash Reddy said, “the moral responsibility for the two deaths, and the illness suffered by others who underwent surgeries at the Malakpet hospital lies with the health minister. Health department sources said on Monday that in all, 19 patients from the Malakpet hospital – including nine who underwent surgeries on January 11 - were admitted to NIMS following the deaths of the two women, Sri Vennela, and Tanniru Shivani.