Panaje Health Camps Suspended After Two Deaths

Panaje, a village located in the Dakshin Kannad district of Karnataka state, came to a standstill after two of its residents died mysteriously after attending a health camp organised by a Mangaluru-based hospital. The relatives of 69-year-old Poovakka, who died on Tuesday, and Class IV student Haseena who died on March 19, had alleged on Wednesday that they had attended a health camp on March 10 and died due negligence of doctors. The camp was organised under the banner of Vajpayee Arogyashree health scheme.

The hospital had sent ‘motivators’ to the village a couple of days prior to the camp. As part of the camp, experts were to meet the poor farmers, poultry owners, agricultural labourers, beedi rollers and few minority families with no set income living in this small town. The ‘motivators’ had allegedly spread the word that the area was prone to several insidious diseases and everybody should attend the health camp.

Local medical practitioners said there were no serious diseases or life threatening conditions in the town. “They do take my advice before going to big cities for advanced treatment. Till now I had only 10-12 cases which I referred to hospitals in Mangaluru. But this was a bolt from the blue that suddenly people were prescribed to go to Mangaluru hospital for various diseases and were bundled off in such a hurry,” they said.

Meanwhile, the district administration suspended all medical camps till the report on the Panaje health camp and ordered an inquiry into the incident.



Source-Medindia