The Bihar Human Rights Commission on Thursday directed Patna police to submit a detailed report in a case related to a woman delivering a stillborn child due to the alleged negligence by a private nursing home.

Gaighat resident Rakesh Kumar Pandey had complained to the commission that his pregnant sister Rani Devi was admitted at Navjeewan Laparoscopy & Maternity Hospital on June 5, 2015. According to Pandey, his sister delivered a dead baby because she was given medicines whose expiry dates had passed. When the police raided the hospital based on Pandey's complaint, several expired medicines were found from the hospital's drug store. The petitioner lodged a criminal case with the Alamganj police station.

The commission asked the Patna City sub-divisional officer to appear before it on June 30 and present a report on the case. City doctors said the commission should take suggestions from the medical board before taking any action against the doctors and the owner of the private nursing home. Gynaecologist Shanti Roy claimed expired medicines do not always harm people.

"Expired medicines only lose their efficacy, they cannot harm any patient. If a patient has popped an expired medicine, it means s/he has not received the effective drug that could treat the disorder," Roy said. "If the maternity home concerned administered expired iron or calcium pills to the pregnant lady, it wouldn't have caused harm to the patient because lack of iron or calcium cannot cause severe damage. However, if the lady was given expired antibiotics to treat infections, it could cause her harm as it wasn't the right drug and the condition could turn fatal. Hence, the government should always check with experts with matters related to expired medicines."

The head of the IGIMS pharmacology department, Harihar Dixit, said: "Expired drugs tend to lose their efficacy by 20 to 30 per cent. However, very few expired drugs, such as tetracycline, show adverse impacts on patients. Tetracycline is an antibiotic and the patient may suffer from kidney failure if expired pills are administered to the patient."