Mysuru: If the last year ended on a note of tragedy with over a dozen people dying from consuming poisoned temple prasada in Chamarajanagar, the new year begins with the story of recovery of most of the other devotees, who fell seriously ill, including 53 other women and 14 children, who were in the ICU and 35 others, who were on ventilator support.
These devotees owe their lives to the tertiary care treatment they have received from super specialists at 11 private hospitals in Mysuru and at the KR Hospital. The state government is all set to clear the bills of all 12 hospitals to the tune of Rs 2 crore, which works out to an average of Rs 3 lakh per patient.
Only one patient is now on ventilator support and one in ICU and nine patients are being treated at seven different private hospitals. The man behind the success story, Chamarajnagar district health officer Dr K H Prasad, said, " Despite our best efforts we lost 17 patients, and we had given up hope on at least 25 others, but thanks to efforts by doctors at all private hospitals, they have survived."
Dr Prasad had appointed a team experts to monitor the line of treatment at the private hospitals treating these patients. Most were poor devotees from remote villages, who had eaten the prasada at the Maramma temple in Sulvadi , Hanur taluk.
Dr Prasad explained although 10 ventilators available in Kollegal taluk were used to immediately treat a few devotees, nine ventilator -fitted ambulances and 16 normal ambulances were used to later shift the rest to Mysuru. "But as only four of its 20 ventilators were available at KR hospital, it could treat only 30 patients, and the others had to be shifted to different private hospitals," he added.
