Sassoon Hospital Rat bite Case: Medical Superintendent removed, 3 others issued show cause notice

Pune: Taking action against laxity in duty regarding the death of a patient due to alleged rat bites at Sassoon General Hospital, the Directorate of Medical Education (DMER) directed the removal of medical superintendent Dr Ajay Taware from his current position and issued show-cause notices to a nurse, a sanitary inspector and a ward boy.

The department directed Dr Taware to resign from his position due to administrative reasons and placed the three hospital staff on temporary suspension, granting them time to respond to the show cause notices.

After Dr Taware stepped down from his position following an order issued by state medical education commissioner Rajeev Nivatkar, the department recently appointed Dr Yellapa Jadhav, associate professor of the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM) department as the new medical superintendent at the hospital. Dr Jadhav had previously been relieved of this position approximately a year ago.

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Speaking to HT, Rajiv Nivatkar said, “We have taken action for the laxity found as per the findings of the investigation report. The charge of the medical superintendent has been removed and a new medical superintendent has been appointed. People who were working in that respective department during the incident have been issued suspension notices.”

This comes after a probe was ordered regarding the case of a patient passing away while undergoing treatment in the ICU allegedly due to rat bites at the hospital on April 1.

The patient was admitted to the hospital on March 17 after he had severely injured himself in an accident where he had fallen from a bridge and was later placed under treatment at the ICU located on the ground floor of the old hospital building.

According to the family members, the patient died from rat bites as they claimed that rat bites were visible in two to three places in the deceased body. They further accused the hospital administration of negligence and demanded action against the hospital management and concerned doctors who were monitoring him.

As a result, the relatives submitted a written complaint to Dr Vinayak Kale, dean of B J Government Medical College. The complaint then gained the attention of the DMER who constituted an enquiry committee to probe the allegations.

The three-member committee then visited the hospital and conducted an investigation. They took records of the statements of the hospital administration and the employees.

On April 3, they completed the investigation and submitted the report to DMER which recommended that there were rat bites visible on the deceased body. The report further mentioned that the hospital administration also agreed to the rat bite claims during the probe. After the death of the patient, a postmortem was conducted which revealed that the patient died from rat bites as stated by the committee report.

Dr Deelip Mhaisekar, DMER told the Daily, "Further action against senior officials will be taken by the state government. However, the order to remove the medical superintendent and suspension of three staff was issued late in the evening on Friday."

“The medical education has taken the action in the purview of their power and state government has powers to take action against senior officials. The suspended staff can submit their response to the suspension show cause notice and if the reply is not found satisfactory, they will be suspended," he added.

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