The health department is yet to learn its lessons from the 2013 Gandaman midday meal tragedy.

A primary health centre on Thursday referred 12 out of 84 children suffering from food poisoning symptoms to Patna Medical College and Hospital for what turned out to be a non-critical case.

As many as 23 children had died at Gandaman village in Saran district in 2013 after eating a meal laced with monocrotophos, an organophosphate insecticide toxic to birds and humans. Some children also died after the primary health centre failed to provide necessary treatment.

Around 5pm on Thursday, Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) received 12 children referred from a primary health centre in Naubatpur, around 25km southwest of Patna, with food poisoning symptoms.

They were released on Friday after being treated for normal food poisoning, which the doctors said should have been treated at the primary health centre level.

"None of the children was suffering from any serious poisoning case such as organophosphorus-related poisoning. All of them were suffering from normal food poisoning which might have been caused because of eating food kept in the open for several hours or cooked in unhygienic conditions," said the head of department, paediatrics, PMCH, Neelam Verma.

A senior doctor in the department also said: "Normal food poisoning related cases can be treated at primary health centre level. There is no need to refer these to medical college hospitals. PMCH should only get critical cases."

A senior doctor in Naubatpur although said: "We sent the children to PMCH because we were under pressure from the department and residents. Nobody wanted to take any risk."

The PMCH doctor said in a normal food poisoning case, patients only need to be administered antibiotics.

"We need to keep tabs on the blood pressure level to see if there are fluctuations. In a normal food poisoning case, the patients have a tendency to vomit, which can lead to dehydration. So, we prescribe oral rehydration solutions too," he added.