R. K. Gupta, MD
The doctor who killed 14 women and sent another 60 to local hospitals while sterilizing them in a “family planning camp” in the impoverished central state of Chhattisgarh in India, has been arrested, and claims it was tainted drugs that caused the death of 14 patients.
The Daily Mail is reporting that R K. Gupta, the Indian doctor who ran the sterilization camp, has been arrested by authorities. He claimed the 83 women he treated on Saturday – of which 60 were hospitalized and 14 died – were not sickened by the rusty tools he was using but were instead given drugs that were illegally produced by local factories. He also claimed that some of the sick women were treated at another camp which proves he is not to blame.
“I am not the culprit,” he told Indian media. “I have been made a scapegoat. It is the administration which is responsible for this incident.”
It does appear that tainted drugs may have caused the deaths of 14 women and left dozens more in critical condition in local hospitals. Since the tragedy began to unfold last weekend, police have closed six factories where Indian-brand ibuprofen and ciprofloxacin were being produced illegally. Both drugs were administered to the women shortly after the procedure when all of them began to complain about feeling dizzy and began vomiting.
“It was not my fault,” said Gupta, who was arrested at a relative’s house after he went into hiding. “The administration pressured me to meet targets. . . . The surgeries went well but the problem was with the medicines given to the women. . . . I have been performing surgeries for a long time and there has never been any problem.”
Gupta, who was given an award for his work sterilizing women, claims to have performed 50,000 of the operations, and says it’s the government’s responsibility to control then number of women who come to his family-planning camp.
He is now facing charges of causing death by negligence.
In addition to arresting Gupta, “Owners of the companies responsible for the sale of drugs have been summoned,” said Raman Singh, state chief minister. “They will all be questioned and we have sealed their factories.”
Thus far, postmortem examinations have failed to reveal the cause of death and medics have requested further testing to ascertain what might have killed the women.
While the incident sparked outrage on the international stage, it also drew locals into the streets where they burned tires and clashed with riot police in protest of the infamous, state-run camps.
Family members claim the women were “herded like cattle” into the camp after being forced to take part in the program aimed at curbing India’s booming population. They claim the government pressures them into accepting money for the surgeries which total little more than a half month’s salary for a manual laborer.
Even though the government claims it stopped setting targets for sterilizing women decades ago, locals say the targets continue to exist, especially in poor areas where people have limited access to education and health care.
Thus far, the government has suspended four health officials and ordered an investigation into the deaths.
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