logo
11 years after being given an expired vax, six victims to get Rs 1.25L compensation in Telangana

11 years after being given an expired vax, six victims to get Rs 1.25L compensation in Telangana

HYDERABAD: The Telangana Human Rights Commission (TGHRC) has directed the state government to pay compensation of Rs 1,25,000 each to six individuals who were administered expired Hepatitis-B vaccines at Gandhi Hospital in 2014.
Terming the incident a serious violation of the victims' fundamental right to health and dignity, the commission chaired by Dr Justice Shameem Akther pointed to systemic lapses and recommended action against the responsible officials, including the superintendent of the hospital.
The complaint was filed in 2014 against Gandhi Hospital, alleging that expired Elovac-B Hepatitis-B vaccines were administered to them by Dr V Tara Devi, who was a research fellow at the time. The complainants alleged that the expired vaccines caused side effects such as mental tension, giddiness, drowsiness, stomach pain, and body aches.
The Commission had instructed the superintendent of Gandhi Hospital to submit a report which stated that the vaccine pack carried two different dates, one for expiry and another for the syringe and due to this oversight, Dr Tara Devi administered the expired vaccine. Further, the hospital denied negligence on the part of the doctor and attributed the confusion to the manufacturer, who had printed two different dates on the packaging. They also claimed that the expired vaccine was of low potency and unlikely to cause side effects.
The Commission also directed the Deputy Commissioner of Police to inspect the drugs at the hospital. Later, Dr Tara Devi was suspended by the hospital administration. However, the Commission found the Superintendent's report unsatisfactory, noting that it failed to adequately address the issue of administering expired vaccines. It stated that the explanation of oversight in such a sensitive matter was unacceptable, especially as it involved patient safety.
The Commission also criticised the attempt to shift responsibility to the manufacturer and dealer without addressing the hospital's accountability. It further noted that suspending Dr Tara Devi did not absolve the institution from the responsibility of providing adequate compensation to the affected individuals. The Commission directed that all recommendations be implemented within two months.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Medical Body IMA Flags Over Rs 1.21 Lakh Crore Unpaid Bills Under Ayushman Bharat
Medical Body IMA Flags Over Rs 1.21 Lakh Crore Unpaid Bills Under Ayushman Bharat

NDTV

timean hour ago

  • NDTV

Medical Body IMA Flags Over Rs 1.21 Lakh Crore Unpaid Bills Under Ayushman Bharat

Over 9.84 crore hospital admissions have been approved under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY), with payments exceeding Rs 1.40 lakh crore, the government informed parliament on Friday. The scheme, focused on universal health coverage, offers up to Rs 5 lakh annually in cashless hospitalisation to nearly Rs 55 crore economically weaker individuals, covering the bottom 40% of India's population. More than 41 crore Ayushman Cards have been issued, with Uttar Pradesh leading at 5.33 crore, followed by Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha. Lakshadweep issued the fewest at 36,000. The scheme works through 31,466 hospitals, including over 14,000 private facilities, under Trust, Insurance, or Hybrid models, allowing state-specific flexibility. However, the Indian Medical Association (IMA) has raised serious concerns in a white paper to the National Health Authority (NHA). They highlighted problems such as delayed payments, low reimbursement rates, and complicated claim processes that threaten hospital finances. In Gujarat, Rs 300 crore in claims from 2021 to 2023 remain unpaid. Only 5% of these claims have been settled within the required 15 days. In Kerala, there are Rs 400 crore in pending dues, and nationwide over Rs 1.21 lakh crore in claims (64 lakh cases) are still outstanding, according to an RTI. The IMA also pointed out that package rates are too low and do not cover treatment costs, especially for complex procedures in private tertiary hospitals. "IMA should be invited while deciding rates, packages and we should ensure timely payments, ease of claims and simplfied procedures," IMA national president Dr Dilip Bhanushali told NDTV. Uniform pricing discourages high-quality hospitals, resulting in only 67 of Delhi's 1,000+ private hospitals participating due to operational and financial challenges. Claim rejections caused by technical errors further increase revenue losses. IMA Recommendations: - Automate payments and create real-time tracking for transparency. - Revise reimbursement rates to reflect actual costs, updating them regularly. - Simplify claim documentation and provide 24/7 digital support (e.g., WhatsApp, SMS). - Set up grievance redressal at district, state, and national levels. - Incentivise accredited and rural hospitals with higher payments and faster approvals. - Move to direct benefit transfers using fintech, avoiding third-party intermediaries, to improve efficiency and sustainability. - Encourage competition and address market failures, reducing payor biases and oligopsony effects that threaten small and mid-size providers. Minister Prataprao Jadhav acknowledged implementation challenges in the Rajya Sabha, urging states to adjust models for better efficiency. The IMA's white paper, submitted to the Rajya Sabha Standing Committee on Health, is awaiting a response from the NHA. Doctors warn that without reforms, the scheme's aim of providing free, quality healthcare for India's poorest is at risk.

‘Hungry treating the hungry': Gaza's doctors are collapsing as famine reaches hospitals
‘Hungry treating the hungry': Gaza's doctors are collapsing as famine reaches hospitals

Indian Express

timean hour ago

  • Indian Express

‘Hungry treating the hungry': Gaza's doctors are collapsing as famine reaches hospitals

Inside Gaza's Nasser Hospital, Dr Mohammad Saqer was midway through a shift when his vision blurred and his knees buckled. He hadn't eaten in nearly a day. 'My fellow doctors caught me before I collapsed,' he told CNN. 'They gave me IV fluids and sugar.' The only food around? A foreign doctor's small carton of juice. That was all it took to bring him back — a reminder of just how little sustains Gaza's doctors now. Most are surviving on one plate of rice a day, even as they labour through 24-hour shifts surrounded by patients suffering from the same thing: hunger. 'We are physically drained,' Saqer said. 'The hungry treating the hungry. The weak treating the weak.' This is not just a crisis behind hospital doors. It's a collapse — one unfolding in plain sight, one that is hollowing out Gaza's medical staff even as they fight to keep the dying alive. In Nasser's paediatric wing, entire rows of babies lie quietly in cribs, their tiny bodies reduced to bone and skin. 'The bones in their faces, spines, and ribcages appear to be protruding,' CNN reported. 'Their limbs resemble limp noodles.' Formula is scarce. Breastfeeding mothers can't produce milk without food. 'She needs fruits. She needs vegetables,' said Yasmin Abu Sultan, trying to feed her baby Mona through a syringe. 'But there's nothing.' At Al-Tahrir Hospital, Dr Ahmad Al-Farra said the situation is so dire, staff are starting to mentally unravel. 'Most of them are now suffering from depression, general weakness, inability to concentrate, and memory loss,' he said. 'They've lost their passion for life.' It's the kind of crisis that distorts a child's sense of the world. Dr Al-Farra recounted the moment he heard a little girl, too young to understand war, whisper to her mother after learning potassium comes from bananas — a fruit long gone from Gaza shelves. 'The girl asked her mother if there were bananas in paradise and she answered yes. The girl said 'then let's become martyrs so I can eat bananas and get better,'' Dr Al-Farra recalled. 'Can you imagine a child wishing for death just to get food?' Outside the hospital, the desperation is no different. In Gaza City, Hidaya Al Mtawwaq watches her three-year-old son wither. Mohammad weighs just six kilograms. 'He can't even stand on his feet,' she told CNN. 'All because of the famine.' Her husband is dead. She can barely afford a bottle of milk. 'I'm truly exhausted,' she said. 'Exhausted, exhausted.' More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed while trying to access aid since May, according to the UN. Aid convoys are still being blocked or looted. Food prices are astronomical: flour now costs $92 (Rs 7,953.93) for just two kilograms, Dr Saqer said. The UN says every one of Gaza's 2.1 million people is now food insecure. Gaza's Health Ministry estimates 900,000 children are going hungry. In just two weeks, Doctors Without Borders has seen severe malnutrition in children under five triple. In northern Gaza, Al-Ahli Al-Arabi Hospital director Dr Fadel Naim said some of his colleagues have collapsed while operating. 'If we have one meal a day, we are lucky,' he told CNN. 'Most people are working 24/7. Their energy is gone.' Doctors say the hunger is no accident. 'As peaceful Palestinian people, we are being collectively punished,' Dr Naim said. 'President Trump must take a strong stance.' Meanwhile, Israel denies accusations that it is restricting aid, despite widespread warnings from the UN, WHO, and other agencies that the conditions amount to man-made famine. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organisation, has called it 'mass starvation.' Despite the exhaustion, Dr Saqer, who hasn't seen his family in three months, says he will not abandon his duty. 'This profession is rooted in humanity,' he told CNN. 'And under no circumstances can we abandon our duty or the oath we took.'

Kerala needs to support transplant patients for immunosuppressive therapy
Kerala needs to support transplant patients for immunosuppressive therapy

The Hindu

time4 hours ago

  • The Hindu

Kerala needs to support transplant patients for immunosuppressive therapy

Last July, 13-year-old Anushka with severe cardiomyopathy, her heart's pumping capacity reduced to just 18%, was nearly dying at Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology, when a donor heart saved her life. This first paediatric heart transplant at SCTIMST was a much-celebrated event. A year later, Anushka is doing very well. But the last one year has been marked by anxiety, along with financial and emotional distress for her parents, Ramesh and Vijitha. They had to uproot themselves from their home town at Engandiyoor, Thrissur, to a small rented house in the capital city for her treatment. Anushka's case is just one example of how life-transforming and positive an experience organ transplant can be, for a patient and his/her family. But the road ahead is tough and scary for the family which is already in dire straits and which has to find close to Rs. 30,000 a month just for life-long immunosuppressive therapy to ensure the survival and best post-transplant outcome for their child Catastrophic health expenditure and rising out of pocket expenditure on health has been pushing families into impoverishment in Kerala . Post-transplant care is one such catastrophic health expenditure causing much financial distress to many families. Organ transplants are life-saving and life-transformative but it is just the beginning of a long road ahead, for the patient as well as the family. The high cost of immunosuppressant drugs a patient has to take for a lifetime, post-transplant, is not an affordable proposition to most families. The State Government has been promoting organ donation and transplantation in a big way since 2012-13 but even a decade later, there is no universal State-wide project which provides immunosuppressants free of cost or takes care of the financial burden incurred by organ transplant recipients for the same. There have indeed been some isolated initiatives by some district panchayats (Kollam, Ernakulam and Kannur) or NGOs and a token support through Kerala Social Security Mission for transplant patients, but this has not been enough. Kerala has fairly good survival rates for solid organ transplants, with the five-year valid kidney transplant survival rate pegged at 85.3% and that of liver transplants at 77.3%, according to a 2018 study. But non-adherence to immunosuppressive therapy because of financial constraints of families is increasingly becoming the single most cause of poor transplant outcome and organ rejection, which is extremely distressing, says Noble Gracious, Executive Director of K-SOTTO. Shammy Sajeev, a 43-year-old housewife from Changanassery, who underwent a renal transplant two years ago at Alappuzha Government Medical College Hospital is now back at the hospital because her transplanted kidney has failed. 'My father is an auto driver and he had donated one of his kidneys to my mother. We had to spend close to ₹14 lakh for her treatment, transplant and medicines. Her medicines cost about ₹10-15,000 every month. Because of extreme financial hardships, we were unable to buy her medicines for the last four months,' says her son, Abhishek, a Plus Two student, who has temporarily discontinued school now. The family knew that the immunosuppressants were important but they were in no position to borrow money anymore. Shammy will now have to go back to dialysis till another related donor as well as funds for the transplant can be arranged, he says. Maintenance immunosuppression drugs with antibacterial, antiviral prophylaxis varies from Rs. 20-30,000 per month in the first year for renal transplant patients, which stabilises to Rs. 8,000- 15,000 per month for subsequent years, for life. For liver transplant patients too, the approximate monthly medicine expenses would be around 15-20,000, according to doctors. The transplant patients would also have to spend another Rs. 10-15,000 per year for the routine check ups and blood tests that they need 'The State will have to think about a comprehensive project to ensure equitable access to free immunosuppressive therapy for those who really need it,' a senior Health official says. In Kerala, a majority of patients undergoing maintenance haemodialysis have some form of financial assistance or are being subsidised by the Government. But the care needs of a minority which has access to transplants is something the State has to prioritise. Non-adherence to immunosuppressive therapy because of financial barriers resulting in the waste of precious organs is not something that any health system can afford, he says. A recent national review meeting on organ transplantation activities, jointly by National Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation and the Union Health Ministry had pointed out that the high cost of immunosuppressant drugs was a significant concern as patients often do not get financial support for drugs beyond the first year. It had strongly recommended that liver and heart transplantation, including the lifelong cost of immunosuppressants for post-transplant recipients, be comprehensively included under the Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana scheme

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store