Bhopal: Cancer patient given ‘expired’ drugs at Lake City Hospital

Bhopal: In case of blatant negligence, a cancer patient at Lake City Hospital, Kasturba Nagar was administered an expired medicine on intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday. The medicine was purchased from the medical shop at the hospital. The patient is however doing fine and is stable. A cancer patient, Awadhram Yadav was admitted to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit on December 27 for lungs infection. Yadav, who has tongue cancer, belongs to a rural area of Seoni district.

Raja Ram Yadav, patient’s brother told Free Press that on Tuesday he complained of diarrhea and on doctor’s advice we purchased four sachets of Prepro SB from the medical shop situated at the hospital. Since, Raja Ram and his family members are illiterate, they didn’t bother about the expiry date. However, one of their family friends Neeraj Malviya, who resides in Saket area, while visiting the patient noticed that the Prepro SB sachet left in the tray had expired date printed on it. The medicine had expired on November 2017 but was conveniently being sold at the medical shop operated at the hospital.

Malviya while talking to Free Press said that he had complained the matter to hospital director Dr Ravi Gupta and also apprised the medical shop manager Tanushree Baghel about the negligence. Director has not yet taken any action against the irresponsible staff, he added. When Free Press enquired about the whole matter, it was found out that in a bid to save themselves the medical shop manager had printed a fake copy of the medicine bill mentioning wrong batch number and expiry date. The batch number of the sachet which was given to the patient was 07SPS001, while in the bill it was mentioned as 07SPS007 and the expiry date was changed to October 2018 from November 2017.

The pictures of the expired sachets and bill are with the Free Press. When asked about the negligence, director Gupta told Free Press, It’s a human error, everyone does it. I have taken required actions. The expired medicine was traced by our nurse due to the multiple checks set up by us. The patient is absolutely fine and I guarantee he is in no danger. On being asked whether the guilty persons have been fired, Gupta refused
to give details saying, When our son do any mistake we don’t kick him out of the house but give him another chance for improvement. And, these employees are like my sons, who deserve 10 chances to learn from the mistakes. Though the medical shop is run and managed by someone else but it is registered in the name of the Gupta.