Chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday ordered a probe by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) into the case of death of a pregnant woman last week at state-run Medical College & Hospital in the state’s West Midnapore district allegedly after being administered with ‘expired’ Ringer’s Lactate (RL) saline. In the next three days the agency will have to submit their initial report.

It is learnt from sources from Nabanna that the chief minister, Mamata Banerjee held a meeting with state’s top officials, including health officials. Speaking to media persons at the state secretariat of Nabanna on Monday, chief secretary Manoj Pant said that from the sequence of events, it is evident that there was negligence on the part of the doctors attached to the hospital. The chief secretary also made it clear that the probe by CID in the matter will go on parallelly with the ongoing probe by the state health department appointed probe committee. The 13-member expert committee formed earlier to look into it has hinted at negligence of the doctors. “Strict action will be taken in the matter after the detailed report by the probe committee is available.

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I will not tolerate any kind of negligence in the matter,” the chief secretary said. “The alleged negligence was from the presence of a PGT, while a senior doctor was conspicuous by his absence, during the time of administering of RL, whose production was stopped. It was a serious violation of the SOP as no senior doctor was present, which should not have been the case,” Mr Pant added. The Chief secretary’s announcement to hand over the investigation to CID comes just hours after PILs were filed in Calcutta High Court in the matter. Last week, five pregnant women were critically admitted at Medinipur Medical College and Hospital after allegedly being administered expired saline. One of them, Mamoni Ruidas (25), died on Friday.

The remaining four were under treatment at the same hospital. Three of them were shifted to state-run SSKM Medical College and Hospital in south Kolkata on Sunday night following sharp deterioration in their health conditions. The West Bengal Health Department has formed a 13-member inquiry committee to investigate how expired saline was administered to these patients. This incident has revived concerns over similar cases in the state’s healthcare system.