Parents allege doc’s greed took kids’ lives, demand strict action
MISLEAD Doctor said partiallymatched bone marrow transplant will be a success, however, many kids died
A number of parents have alleged that a doctor at a private hospital here lured them into getting a partially-matched (or haploidentical) bone marrow transplant done for their ailing children, assuring them of a high success rate. However, almost half of these children later died, they said.
Demanding strict action against the doctor, the parents took out a candle march under the banner of Jaipur Jeevandata, an NGO working for blood donation, on Sunday evening.
The doctor, Satyendra Katewa, has refuted all charges.
“My 16-year-old nephew was suffering from thalassemia and used to blood transfusions twice a month. Then we met this doctor (Dr Katewa) who advised us to get a bone marrow transplant. We didn’t have a fully-matched donor but the doctor said that we can go ahead with a partially matched related donor,” said Amit Agrawal, a businessman from Patna.
The doctor gave a rough estimate of ~25-30 lakh for the process, he said. “But the quoted amount was spent even before the transplant. The transplant took place in August 2016 but my nephew’s condition deteriorated with time. We lost him the next year,” said Agrawal, adding that he spent between ~3-4 crore for the treatment.
Other parents who lost their children – after undergoing bone marrow transplant as they were suffering from thalassemia or leukaemia – have voiced their
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protests against the doctor. Some have written to the state human rights commission and to the prime minister and Rajasthan chief minister seeking action against the doctor.
Hemlata Devi, another parent from Bharatpur, said that she lost her six-month-old son, who was suffering from leukaemia, because of the doctor’s ‘experiment’. “He (Dr Katewa) gave us assurance that the success rate was 90-95%. We had faith in the doctor’s word. Our son died within months of the transplant,” said Devi, wife of a CRPF personnel. She said the doctor had said that the transplant will cost ~1.7 lakh but her family spent around ~60 lakh.
Agrawal said that he knows of 24 children, who have died after haploidentical bone marrow transplant in the past four years, and there might be more. In the same period, about 60-70 transplants have taken place at the hospital.
Agrawal filed a complaint in the CJM court in Patna against the doctor for culpable homicide, cheating and criminal conspiracy. “We’re also planning to file a police case against the doctor. It’s not easy to pursue legal action against a doctor,” he said.
In his defence, Dr Katewa, a specialist in pediatric haematooncology and bone marrow transplant, said that with recent advances the success rate of haploidentical transplants is as good as that of matched donor transplants and there are other factors that led to the death of the patients. “In leukaemia, if there is a full match then the success rate is 50-60% while if there is a partial match, the success rate is 40-50%. In thalassemia, of which we had 30-35 cases, almost half were lowrisk patients while half were high-risk. Among the low-risk patients, we had a success rate of 90% while we had a success rate of 60% among high-risk students,” said Katewa.