Hundreds of children in Telangana's Karimnagar district were sent straight to the operation table, without investigation.
Highlights
- 2 doctors held after complaints of children with similar surgery marks
- Many children operated for appendicitis, women's uterus removed
- Surgeries done without much investigation, often without anaesthetists
At a school in Telangana's Karimnagar district, boys and girls line up to show identical scars on their stomach. More than 30 of them have had appendicitis operations. Some as young as six.
Manoj, a Class 8 student of Mootapally Zilla Parishad school, says when he had a stomach ache, he was taken to the doctor and then referred to a clinic for a surgery. It cost Rs 20,000.
Like him, hundreds of children in the district were sent straight to the operation table for stomach ache.
The surgeries would be done within 24 hours, often without investigation and without even a qualified anaesthetist present.
The surgeries would be done within 24 hours, often without investigation.
"It is like a shed with no sophisticated, sanitised environment for surgery. The surgeon also gave anaesthesia,'' Karimnagar police chief Joel Davis told NDTV.
The police started investigating the surgeries earlier this month after reports about an unusually large number of schoolchildren bearing surgery marks.
"We were shocked. In several schools, from Class 2 to 10, some 30 to 40 or even 50 children have undergone appendicitis operations,'' Investigating Officer Rajasekhar Raju said.
Most of the patients named two doctors, who were arrested this week. Thattipamula Suresh handled over 300 appendicitis surgeries and Manoj as operated upon at least 100 children in the past year.
Business was apparently good and Suresh opened a second clinic last year that was not even registered.
They charged up to Rs 25,000 for each procedure and allegedly had an arrangement with local medical practitioners who referred anyone with a stomach ache to them pretending it was an emergency.
The police started investigating the surgeries after reports about an unusually large number of schoolchildren bearing surgery marks.
Sattamma from Mootapally village says when she went to the Jagtiyal clinic, first her uterus was removed and then her appendix. At least 350 women in her village have had their uterus removed and 40 children had appendicitis surgeries.
33-year-old Pushpa is a mother of three girls, all born through C-section. Her undiagnosed stomach ache led to three more surgeries. "First it was to remove appendix, then fibroids and then the uterus itself was removed. Even now I get backache and I suspect it is because of the excessive anaesthesia shots," she said.
The district medical and health officer did a sample survey in one revenue division with 47,000 people and found that 583 appendectomies were performed in the past five years.