KOLLAM: The ‘Heart Centre’ with the ESI hospital in Kollam, where two cardiac patients died on the same day last week, has witnessed 106 such deaths during the four years since its inception. This is far below the “unavoidable mortality rate,” according to Dr N. Prathap Kumar who runs the centre under PPP agreement with the ESI corporation. “In July 2017, we completed four years of service benefiting 60,000 OP patients with nearly 6,000 IP patients, with unavoidable mortality rate of only 1.76 per cent, far less than what has been recorded in other hospitals in Kerala. It is to the credit of cardiologists, nurses and the technicians that out of the 2,639 elective angioplasty, the fatality rate is as low as 0.55 per cent against the optimum international rate of 0.65 percent,” said Dr N. Prathap Kumar.
The Heart Centre is being run by Life Care under him. He has also alleged that a mere 10 per cent of eligible cases are referred by the ESIC to the Heart Centre, with 90 per cent referred to other empanelled hospitals. “With this, the doctors with the ESI hospital should be blamed for kicking up all these fuzz. We suspect a conspiracy against the Heart Centre,” he added. The angioplasty done in the Heart Centre created a financial gain of Rs 3 crore because cardiac procedures done here are 46 per cent less costly than CGHS rates against when the patients were referred to empanelled hospitals. The Kollam district administration had the other day ordered a probe into the death of two patients who died hours after angioplasty was done while on treatment with the Heart Centre. The relatives alleged the deaths were due to medical negligence.
The two patients, Usha, 46, from Ayathil and Sadasi-van, 44, from Polayathode here had consulted the ESI hospital and were referred to the Heart Centre last week. The patients underwent angioplasty and breathed their last on Friday. The relatives sought action against the guilty. An expert team consisting of the DMO, a cardiologist and an anaesthetist was formed by assistant collector Dr. S. Chithra to investigate the allegation. The team has been asked to submit its report within two weeks. The relatives of Sadasivan alleged that they were not consulted before angioplasty procedure. They allege that he was not diagnosed with cardiac-related issues. Meanwhile, the doctor who led the surgery denied negligence and cited “diabetes” to be the reason behind the two deaths.
