Maternal Death In Mumbai- Nanavati Hospital held Guilty

Mumbai Mirror campaign: Govt report on pregnant accident victim’s death

Nanavati held guilty

Last month, hospital had refused to admit Reena Kutekar after her husband couldn’t afford to pay the Rs 25,000 advance

 

Lata Mishra

 

Posted On Thursday, May 17, 2012 at 03:33:51 AM

A government panel that reviews cases of maternal mortality has held Nanavati Hospital responsible for a pregnant accident victim’s death last month. The indictment is a severe blow to the top hospital that is at the centre of a row over private medical facilities’ refusal to provide emergency care to the city’s poor. And it follows a series of reports by Mirror highlighting the issue. Reena Kutekar, 24, who was five months pregnant, was hit by a car in Juhu on April 6. She was rushed to Nanavati, but was denied admission because her husband could not cough up a deposit of Rs 25000. Her husband, Ram, managed to rusttle up Rs 5,000, and said he would pay the rest later, but Nanavati refused to budge. She was shifted to BMC-run Cooper and KEM hospitals, but they, too, failed to treat her because of unavailability of ICU beds and doctors. Reena, who was finally admitted to JJ after a delay of 16 hours, died two days later. The Maternal Death Review Committee, which inquired into her case, said in its preliminary report last week that Nanavati should have followed government norms and provided “first-line treatment” to Reena. The panel also faulted the hospital for its failure to arrange a fully-equipped ambulance with a doctor on board for her transfer to another facility. First-line care involves determining the patient’s condition and stabilising her. “The guidelines on preventing maternal deaths clearly say that all hospitals should give first-line treatment to pregnant women. Nanavati, however, didn’t admit the woman (Reena) and transferred her to Cooper without stabilising her,” Committee member Dr Asha Advani told Mirror, terming the case “shocking”. The report, which has been submitted to the Health Department and the BMC, follows a month-long effort by Mirror to show how private-charitable hospitals in the city routinely turn away needy patients despite enjoying government concessions. Reena’s case doesn’t strictly fall in the ambit of the five-member committee as she is primarily an accident victim. It still took up the case because Nanavati, KEM and Cooper’s failures to provide emergency care had contributed to a pregnant woman’s death. “Initially, our report covered 22 maternal deaths that the city saw in April. But after a lengthy and heated debate, we decided to include Reena’s case. This is the first time we have made such an exception,” said Advani, who is also a special officer with the Family Welfare Department. During their inquiry, the members sought detailed statements from all KEM, Cooper and JJ, where Reena was eventually admitted on April 6. They also interviewed doctors who examined her that day. “We are yet to seek Nanavati’s report,” Advani said, adding that Reena’s husband, Ram, would also be asked to appear before the committee. Other members who were part of the inquiry are: Dr Rajeev Satoskar, an associate professor from KEM’s surgery department; Dr Madhu Garasia, head of KEM’s anaesthesia department; Dr Rekha Davar, head of gynaecology at JJ and Dr Madhuri Patel of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Association. They chronicled Reena’s entire journey from Nanavati to JJ. “We checked if she was provided an ambulance when she was shifted from one hospital to another and whether doctors were supervised the transfers,” Advani said. It will now send a circular to all 250 hospitals in the city, warning them that action would be taken if they turn away a pregnant woman without giving her primary treatment.

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Dear Prime Minister, are you listening to the right people, Sir?

REBUTTAL TO ‘SAFETY’ CLAIMS MADE BY PM MANMOHAN SINGH ON MAY 16, 2012

Anuj Wankhede

The Prime Minister of India – on Wednesday May 16, 2012- made a statement on the floor of the House regarding the safety of the civilian nuclear facilities in the country.

Even WITHOUT a natural disaster, here is a list of publicly available Civilian Installation incidents that have already occurred within the country.

How dare he mislead the nation in this way? Nuclear accidents are not road and railway accidents, which happen almost daily in our country.

Why are you considering data only AFTER Fukushima? And telling the House that we are safe?

Here is our previous to Fukushima record –

4 May 1987 – Kalpakkam
Fast Breeder Test Reactor at Kalpakkam.
Refueling accident ruptures the reactor core resulting in a two-year shutdown.

10 Sep 1989 – Tarapur, Maharashtra
After operators at the Tarapur Atomic Power Station find reactor leaking radioactive Iodine at more than 700 times normal levels, repairs to the reactor take more than a year.

13 May 1992 – Tarapur, Maharashtra
A malfunctioning tube causes the Tarapur Atomic Power Station to release 12 curies of radioactivity.

31 Mar 1993 – Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh
The Narora Atomic Power Station suffers a fire at two of its steam turbine blades, damaging the heavy water reactor and almost leading to a meltdown.

2 Feb 1995 – Kota, Rajasthan
The Power Station leaks radioactive helium and heavy water into the
Rana Pratap Sagar River necessitating a two-year shutdown for repairs.

22 Oct 2002 – Kalpakkam
Almost 100 kg radioactive sodium at a fast breeder reactor leaks into a purification cabin, ruining a number of valves and operating systems.

Sir, you ‘may’ be a honorable man. But then who is giving you wrong information? As a man of economics, you may not be aware of the seriousness of these incidents.

We, the citizens of the country, fear for the worst, especially considering the disastrous experiences of past accidents and natural disasters in India.

We do not expect timely relief.

We do not expect evacuation.

We do not expect rehabilitation.

We do not expect compensation.

We do not expect justice.

We do not even expect truth from the establishment.

We ONLY EXPECT YOU TO STOP THIS NUCLEAR MADNESS.

We will tell you the ways to progress without Nuclear Energy. We have enough scientists who say NO to nuclear power and who are willing to show you the way.

Are you listening, Sir?
Your democracy asks you!

Corporate Social Responsibility and Satyamev Jayate #Aamir Khan

 

 Guest Post, Ipshita Samanta, writes for Kracktivism

 ‘“There must be some way out of here” said the joker to the thief

“There’s too much confusion”, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth. ‘  —-All along the watch tower, Bob Dylan

We are watching from watch tower. We are traipsing along the tricky road. Yet we are enjoying our smug delirious delusions. We belong to the army of workers, supporters of corporate. No, we are not here to talk in tropes. Rather there is severe need to redress the issue of corporate social responsibility. Our ‘’responsibility’’.

We can say corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a form of corporate self-regulation incorporated into a business environment. It works within realm of ethics, morality and international law. The goal of CSR is to accept responsibility for the company’s actions and encourage a positive impact through its activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, shareholders and all other members of the community who may also be considered as stakeholders.’’

So in a more layman’s language CSR (corporate social responsibility; from here on CSR) is giving back some of the profits that corporate makes by lactating society’s resource to the people, to the nature in a word to the society itself. But this juxtaposition seems to be highly ironical, vacuously true. That is, if a profiteering organization strives by profit making why should they part their so dear sizeable portion? And if they do, why in the first place the free trade (this coinage is very much capitalistic; without which corporate presumably cannot do business) comes from barrel of gun, why they resort to the coercive methods? Why is there fierce competition to suck the cows dry? Why occlusion of peoples’ freedom of speech, democratic rights in most of the third world developing countries, where CSR is a comparatively newer concept.

Yes, we are talking about Vedanta, Posco and other expropriator corporate companies. In accordance to the rule book CSR is all about self policing, moral guide liners. But in real paradigm there is a shift between the definitions of commitment to the deed. We need not give the data. Data of exploitations, evidences of corruptions, instances of gross misappropriation are splashed in every nook and corner. State machinery is in cohort. Grapphiti is in the wall.

The face of Soni Suri is fading. Instead faking of happiness is in the wind.

So called messiah against corruption Mr. Anna Hazare is smiling.

Jago Bharat campaign of  Tata is buzzing.

Flocks of youth are in trance of corporate responsibility.

Ours own Oprah has came in to fore. He is the actor turned social reformer. Amir khan.

While he argues against sexs selection  he talks, discusses for the sake of destined to be unmarried 2 crore single men. He cries with the female guest who has been aborted against her wish for bearing female fetus. Yet his own child has been born out of surrogacy, one of the crudest forms of women slavery, lending your womb for money.

But he starts his program with jai hind. He remains politically correct. And also does not try to insinuate the patriarchal core. Commercial, eh? Oh it also has a greater production value. Every paisa will go the NGO run by Ambanis. The speculative money maker. The gambler whose speculations have drained surpluses of manufacturing sector in to the share markets, price fixings, speculative trade. Implicit assassinator of millions of farmers. Puppeteer of government. And he is protecting the girl child! Ironies do not stop here. Every corporate company has been tied to one or more NGO where they wash their bloody hands down. A laying off machine of black money. A devil in saint’s hood. Every slum in metropolises boasts of a NGO which is invariably linked to one or more corporate companies.

The network of capital and NGO is like infinite loop. To fix the poverty turn the lenders in to beggars. In return of education, health, infrastructural changes suck the country till death. And NGO becomes agent of death. Some will argue with trickledown effect. But is it not the one of most important reasons that in third world countries there is so higher political and bureaucratic corruption. To begin with let us look back in to the origin.

The term CSR came in to vogue in 60’s. The motivation was to make a social impact so that there could be long term profit. It involves with business ethics in a business environment. Cynics argued that it was merely a hoodwinking maneuver to the government to sideline the improper practices of big MNCs.

Also one of the aspects of the CSR was to treat human resources as capital or human capital, to potentiate them for future labor pool. So CSR is merely Keynesian approach to the corporate core value. A window dressing. CSR works as a lackey of business sustainability. A caudal approach to hide business agenda from the consumers. Also in the epoch of imperialism CSR has made up the ugly feature of neo classical economy in to a sacrosanct virtue. To facilitate the change of mode of production in the upcoming new economy from semi feudal to more aggressive oligarchy  CSR has played a big role. It has gained trust through its beleaguering methods. By building brand values it has cleared the path of monopolistic hegemony. And a way to survive in troubled water. A malignant growth which cannot be uprooted only by reformist attitude.

In Indian context in 2009 ministry of corporate affairs had published a guideline for inclusive growth and responsible business. We should note here everything is voluntary, i.e it is not a law to be abided. There come lots of good words. Ethical practice, respect for workers’ right, respect for human rights, environment keeping, social development activities and so on. But still everything remains fuzzy. Everything depends on the corporate will. And every single day every basic right is flouted. In our city the poor are driven into corner, they are being brushed under carpet. We are making our cities beautiful. Those who can buy have their amenities, we, the middle class commuter of vacillating bridge are in fear. And the poor have nothing to lose.

Here in the second episode of ‘Satyameva Jayate ‘Amir Khan tells of child abuse. 53% of the children are abused silently. Most of the incidents occur in their safeness of home. And we should not forget about the hapless child laborers. For whom there is no Amir Khan to shed tear on who are being molested, raped, sodomised in their work places. In the dark corners, in the alleys of corporate profit making factories they are sacrificed daily.

And still Amir Rocks!!!!

Ipshita  Samanta  is doing my phd in statistics from ISI, in kolkata

 

Super Blogger and friend Vidyut Kale gets a take-down notice for exposing corruption #stopitrules

A  Super blogger,  and a super duper  friend Vidyut Kale had written a post about the raid on the Belvedere yacht party, where she also exposed a history of financial misdealings by Lt Col (retd) Gautam Dutta and Anju Dutta of Marine Solutions, the url in question is  sailgate-the-party-that-wasnt. She has received a take down notice for her article being defamatory. She says that the IT Rules are so arbitrary that she has no chance to defend herself against the takedown, because no explanation or even verification of the premise of the take down notice being correct is required. Anyone getting the takedown noticeis legally required to take their content down within 36 hours or they lose protections as intermediaries.

While she is also the author, her position as the owner of the blog makes her vulnerable to these threats if her blog is to survive. She has no experience of fighting court cases, and can’t afford a lawyer, while the persons sending her the notice have a large law firm at their command. It is not defamation if her content is provable through RTI documents, but to prove it, she will have to violate the IT Rules, lose protection and fight several years in court – to save a post that exposes corruption in sailing on technicalities lawyers can exploit for people with the money to throw, while bloggers can be victimized out of any serious truth seeking by the simple virtue of not having enough money.

This is the same blogger that blogged to draw attention to the Keenan and Reuben murders when mainstream media had reported the story and let it go. Her efforts led to large scale media attention that helped the poor families get attention to their case and prevent the killers from going scot free. This can be verified by searching for Keenan and Reuben, and her blog – aamjanata.com is one of the top results. Two posts she did compiling news coverage was extensively refered to by others covering the case. She raised questions that were important to not be ignored.

She has also reported on and followed the case of Naina Singh’s dowry death, where the police were refusing to file an FIR. She created a group of people to support Naina’s mother as well as found local lawyers (Delhi) who would help her approach courts to get directions for filing an FIR. The FIR was filed five months after Naina Singh’s death.

She has blogged extensively on issues of national interest, freedom of speech and human rights.

In reporting stories from the RTI documents related to sailing scams she was again covering an area that is not big enough for mainstream media, but an important leak of money as well as integrity for the country. Not to mention the illegal practices around sailing making it a security risk through norms of “looking the other way”.

This blogger, who is a housewife and has little income is at serious risk of being attacked by a team of seasoned lawyers with money to burn. for daring expose corrupt practices. This is a very concerning sign for freedom of speech and whistle blowing in our country. Any media attention highlighting her situation and precarious situation of smaller content producers in India like bloggers, independent artists, cartoonists, etc and the role played by the IT Rules will go a long way in protecting their rights and drawing attention to their victimization.

MP P Rajeeve is moving a motion in the Rajya Sabha for the IT Rules to be annulled for being unconstitutional, but without appropriate attention, it may not happen or may be too late for many like her.

Please extend your support to her twitter–@vidyut

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