Report on amputation case submitted
 

BY BHARATHA Malawaraarachchi

THE Health Ministry yesterday received the report of the preliminary investigation on the purported medical misadventure where the right hand of an 83-year-old woman at the Colombo National Hospital (CNH) was amputated.

Director General of Health Services Dr. Athula Kahandaliyange will hand over his recommendations based on this report to Healthcare and Nutrition Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva, who ordered a full probe into this incident.

The report was handed over to Dr. Kahandaliyange by CNH's Director Dr. Hector Weerasinghe yesterday morning.

"The report contains the observations following the preliminary investigation. The action to be taken will be announced next week," a Ministry spokesman told the Daily News yesterday.

While declining to reveal the contents of the report, the spokesman said disciplinary action will be taken against anyone found guilty.

The right hand of Caroline Perera of Wellampitiya was amputated last Saturday. She was initially admitted to get treatment for her filaria infected leg.

This incident occurred on Saturday night after the patient developed complications in her hand after being administered a penicillin injection. She had been given an intra-venous injection and doctors suspect that it may have accidentally contacted the arteries, which had allegedly led to the complications.

On a directive by Minister de Silva, Dr. Kahandaliyange issued instructions to CNH Director Dr. Hector Weerasinghe to investigate the matter and submit a report.

Earlier, Dr. Weerasinghe told the Daily News that this was a very rare incident. Such an incident was previously reported in the 1990s.

There had been no complications thereafter.

The patient was given the injection on Friday night and her hand was amputated below the shoulder on Saturday night.

"The penicillin injection concerned is not dangerous. It is a normal injection which is regularly used in hospitals," the spokesman asserted.