Kolkata: The state Health department is likely to carry out a probe to determine the quality of the surgical threads that are supplied to various hospitals and medical colleges across Bengal. After the NRS Medical College and Hospital incident where two infants died allegedly because of the use of poor quality surgical threads, the Health department is contemplating to conduct a detailed probe into the process as to how the surgical threads are being supplied to the hospitals. It would also be looked into whether the agencies assigned to supply the threads to the hospitals are compromising with the quality. According to a senior Health department official, it has to be determined if the threads which broke loose after the surgeries were supplied by the government-affiliated agencies or the patients family members had brought these threads on their own from the market outside the hospital. Incidentally, two infants in the NRS Medical College and Hospital recently died after the doctors had allegedly applied poor quality threads during the surgeries. In both the cases, the family members of the victims alleged that the threads which were used by the hospital were of poor quality and hence they got snapped leading to the infection in the patients. It was also alleged that the threads broke loose in each patient more than once complicating the whole situation. A section of the hospital staff members at the NRS Medical College and Hospital said that patients family members are often asked to buy the surgical threads from outside when the hospital supply of threads is exhausted. Therefore, the question arises if the surgical threads were bought from medicine shops outside the hospital. It would also be seen if they were of good quality. The health department is also looking at the issue if the agencies responsible for the supplying of these threads are degrading the standards after getting an order from the government. The NRS Medical College and Hospital has already ordered an inquiry into the death of two infants. Meanwhile, the hospital authorities on Sunday decided to close down the SNCU at the pediatric surgery department for two days for sanitisation works. The move has been taken after there was a possibility of infection being spread to other patients. The patients from the pediatric surgery department have already been shifted to other departments for the interim period. A 10-day-old baby who was born with imperforate anus and the doctors conducted surgery for artificially creating an anus eventually died at the hospital on February 28. It was alleged that surgical threads used for stitching snapped more than once. This led to an infection and the patient finally died.

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