Letter from Bombay. An unmitigated tragedy.

Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy Hospital-J J Hospital-was founded in 1845 and was soon acclaimed.Associated with the Grant Medical College, it is the oldest teaching institute in western and central India.The following account would have made the first Indian baronet, Sir Robert Grant, Dr Charles Morehead, and the others who led the institutions to glory hang their heads in shame."In January 1986 tragedy struck [patients in] the J J Hospital....It started with Bapu Thombre.He died on 21 January.He was followed by 13 others.The last was Dawood Dholakia on 7 February . . .they all died unnatural and untimely deaths.Their ages ranged from 10 to 76. Two of them were well on their way to recovery . . .they too died.The common drug administered to all 14 was glycerine.... "But this glycerine was not harmless.It was lethal.It was contaminated with diethylene glycol, a deadly poison.As a result, all these patients developed anuria leading to renal cortical necrosis.It was irreversible.Dialysis was of no avail.They did not ask to be born; they did not choose to die.They died.They died as they had lived, quietly and in poverty."Little could they know that by their deaths they would arouse an outcry of public indignation which would lay bare lack of probity in public life, malaise and corruption in places high and low indulged in contempt of the laws of God and man."All is over bar the shouting.It is time to pause and forage into the murky water of lies, deceit, intrigue, ineptitude and corruption to salvage the truth about what led to this ghastly and tragical episode."To that end . . .hereunder . . . the sequence of events."'