Self-medication likely led to death of Sion resident doc

Mumbai: An internal inquiry by authorities at Sion’s Lokmanya Tilak municipal general hospital and medical college has revealed that the second-year resident doctor who died on February 29 had taken an antibiotic injection via a saline drip that possibly led to allergic reaction and death.
Dr Mohan Joshi, the hospital’s dean, said when the resident doctor’s room partner returned to their room at around 11pm on Thursday, he found the former lying dead, following which his body was sent for postmortem and an internal inquiry was instituted.
“During the inquiry, we found that he had a fever the previous day and had gone to the casualty, where he was given a dose of antibiotics. On Thursday, he decided to avoid going to the casualty and took the antibiotics in his hostel room while his partner was out on medical rounds,” said Dr Joshi.
When his room partner returned, he saw that rashes had erupted all over his colleague’s body and a 100 ml saline bottle and antibiotics were strewn beside him. “It is unfortunate that we lost him. He was a brilliant student, doctor and also, a good counsellor to his peers and juniors,” said Dr Joshi.
The forensic department at the hospital said they had reserved opinion on the cause of death. “It looks like he had intoxicated himself with medication. We have sent his viscera (tissue of internal organs, body fluids and secretions) to the forensic laboratory in Kalina for toxicological analysis,” said the forensic doctor.
Meanwhile, the dean has urged representatives of the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors (MARD) at the hospital to tell resident doctors to avoid self-medication.
“We met resident doctors and told them this is not the way of availing treatment. Had he gone to the causality to take the antibiotic and suffered from drug reaction, we could have saved his life. We have advised resident doctors not to self-medicate,” he said.
Dr Vardhaman Rote, president, MARD at Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation-run hospitals, which has 2,700 members, said they are speaking to resident doctors at all four civic hospitals and medical colleges.
“We are shocked by his death. Such an incident where a doctor has self-medicated and died due to drug reaction has never happened before. While we are speaking to resident doctors of all the four medical colleges and urging them to seek medical help if they are unwell, we request the Sion Hospital management to conduct another inquiry into his death. We want to know what antibiotics he took and why,” said Dr Rote.