Dantewada (Chhattisgarh), Oct 28 (PTI) Thirteen people were admitted to a hospital in Raipur after contracting an eye infection following cataract surgery at a government medical facility in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada district. officials said Monday.

This prompted the health ministry to order an investigation into the matter, following which three healthcare workers, including the doctor who performed cataract operations at the Dantewada district hospital, were suspended Sunday.

Their condition would now be stable, she said.

The 13 people who contracted the eye infection underwent cataract surgery at the Dantewada district hospital between October 18 and 22, Dantewada Collector Mayank Chaturvedi told PTI.

“When one or two cases were discovered, we initiated an exercise to trace patients who had undergone surgeries at the hospital in the last 15 to 20 days to examine the condition of their operated eyes. We have covered 80 patients, and so far 13 of them suffered from infection in the operated eye,” he said.

Despite learning on October 20 about the infection of a patient operated on October 18, the doctor concerned continued to perform surgical operations until October 22 and reportedly did not inform higher authorities about the matter, said the official.

The Dantewada district hospital has four operation theaters and the target is to operate on 20 cataract patients every week, he said.

“So far, we have examined patients who underwent surgery between October 10 and 22. We will continue the tracing exercise and examine the condition of patients who underwent surgery before October 10,” he said.

After the matter came to light, the Ministry of Health formed a team to investigate.

The investigation team found that standard protocols for cataract surgery were not followed properly and the operation theater was not properly disinfected before operations, an official said.

Prima facie, negligence was found on the part of the hospital’s eye surgeon Dr Geeta Netam, assistant ophthalmologist Dipti Toppo and nurse Mamta Vaide, the Health Minister told reporters on Sunday and State Family Welfare, Shyam Bihari Jaiswal.

The three people were placed under suspension with immediate effect on Sunday, he said.

The Dantewada district hospital superintendent has received a show notice seeking his response in this regard, he said.

Senior Congress leader and former chief minister Bhupesh Baghel targeted the state government and said in an article on ‘X’ that “incidents of botched eye surgery have yet started in the BJP government” . “The same thing happened during the previous BJP rule. Such an incident has not happened even once in our government (referring to his party’s rule between 2018 and 2023). Vishnu’s (Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai) good governance has proven to be useless and ineffective,” Baghel alleged.

The Congress constituted a six-member team led by its Bastar MP Lakheshwar Baghel to probe the incident.

Under the previous BJP governments led by Raman Singh, there were several cases of patients contracting eye infection after cataract surgery. PTI TKP GK

This report is automatically generated from PTI news service. ThePrint assumes no responsibility for its content.