Jamshedpur, March 23: A large number of patients who had undergone hydrocil operation at a three-day district health mela held at Moubhandar, Ghatshila, last month have reached Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College Hospital with post-surgical complications.

Patients have started to pour in at the hospital just a week after the mela.

According to hospital sources, more than 20 patients have visited the hospital to be treated for post-surgical complications.

About 50 patients had undergone hydrocil surgery during the three-day mela, which was inaugurated by health minister Dinesh Kumar Sarangi. The union health ministry, as part of its health awareness programme, had funded the mela in every parliamentary constituency of the country. Hospital sources said the operation facilities were inadequate at the operation theatre of the Hindustan Copper Limited hospital where the operations were performed.

The hospital did not have even a needle-holder and silk thread to stitch the operated portion, said sources.

“The operation theatre had not been in use for more than a year and the sterilisation machine was out of order, which could have lead to the infection of the wounds,” they said. “This was the reason for doctors not operating even a single case on the first day of the mela,” they said.

A junior doctor at the hospital said the patients were lucky not to have any further complications otherwise, some could have even died because of tetanus or other infections.

“Neither did they have sterilisation facility nor was the operation theatre fumigated for the purpose. This forced all the surgeons on duty to stay away from operation on the first day,” he said.

However, as the district administration and health department officials issued instructions to operate all hydrocil patients, who had turned up in large numbers, the doctors were forced to perform the operations, he said.

“The patients are fortunate to have only minor surgical problems such as pus formation and delay in healing of wounds,” a doctor said.

Surgery department head S.P. Sinha said some people were trying to exaggerate the number of patients visiting the hospital with post-operation complications. “Some patients had returned with minor problems such as pus formation at the stitch. This was not purely because they were operated with non-sterilised instruments, “he said.

All the patients who returned with post-surgical complication were from rural areas and there is great probability that they did not take proper care of the wound after being operated at the mela, Sinha said.