CHENNAI: Nine months after at least 16 persons acquired hepatitis C infection while undergoing dialysis at Stanley Medical College and Hospital in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu government on Monday told the Madras high court it will pay Rs 3 lakh each as interim compensation to the affected patients. Recording this, the bench of Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T S Sivagnanam asked the government to enhance the interim compensation given to the families of two people who have since died due to the infection.

The bench, passing orders on a PIL filed by Jayaram Venkatesan of Mylapore, also made it clear that an infection protection programme should be put in place in order to improve the public health care system.

Through his PIL, Venkatesan brought to the court's notice the fact that in September-October last year about 16 kidney failure patients who had been undergoing periodical dialysis at Stanley Hospital acquired hepatitis-C infection at the government facility. Enclosing the list of the 16 patients, the PIL said an internal inquiry admitted that most of the patients had indeed contracted the infection at the hospital. The report, he said, "curiously exonerated the hospital authorities of negligence."

After the infection issue surfaced, none of these patients were called for dialysis, resulting in the death of one patient, Rajini, in October 2014, he said. Since the hospital does not have a dedicated facility to handle dialysis of patients carrying hepatitis C, they were not given further treatment, as authorities did not want to risk a spread, the PIL said.

Most of the infected patients are young and sole breadwinners of their families, the PIL said, adding that dialysis patients with hepatitis C have a shorter life span than those without the infection. "Therefore, it is necessary to compensate all these patients for medical negligence by Stanley hospital," it said.

The PIL wanted the court to recall records of all dialysis patients from March 1, 2014 and screen them for infection, constitute a committee comprising a retired high court judge and doctors, and direct the authorities to initiate domestic and criminal cases against the erring doctors, besides awarding compensation to the victims. The high court had in April this year directed the state health department to pay compensation to the affected patients.

On Monday, Tamil Nadu health secretary Dr J Radhakrishnan appeared before the court and said, "A decision has been taken to disburse Rs 3 lakh as interim compensation, and the needful will be done within a week's time." The judges then said authorities would also examine the enhancement of interim compensation for two persons -- S Baskar and K Samsuddin – who are said to have passed away.

On the infection protection programme, the court said a report prepared by a three-member expert committee was available and the health secretary has agreed to put the recommendations in public domain, inviting suggestions. "The report will be put in a public domain within a week, and it will give four weeks for suggestions. Thereafter, the suggestions would also be examined by the three-member committee, besides one doctor from non-government side," the bench said, naming Dr Muthusethupathy as the fourth member of the committee to scrutinise the report and suggestions. The exercise is expected to be completed within four weeks thereafter, it said, and adjourned the matter to September 21 for further proceedings.