Distilled water supplied to hospital found to be containing alcohol

Udupi: Alcohol content has been reportedly detected in the water cans supplied to the city’s Koosamma Shambhu Shetty Memorial Haji Abdulla Government Mothers and Children’s Hospital.

Apparently, the water cans were delivered to the hospital on May 13 by a person named Ajith. Among the 13 delivered cans, three were missing labels and hence were sent back to the supplier while the rest were accepted by the Gokul, store executive of the hospital.  Of the three, two were manufactured in 2019, while one can had the batch number of 21/2017 whose distilled water was filled to the humidifiers of the hospital on June 4.

Accidental finding

On June 4 afternoon, supervisor Sandesh and nurse Drayan brought the stretchers near the consultation room with the aim to fit cylinders to the stretcher and in the process, a few droplets of water fell on their hands which evaporated instantly leaving back the cool feeling of ice. Curious, they inspected, the smell of spirit was emanating from the humidifier.

Confirmation

Hence, the respective distilled water was sent to the laboratory in Bengaluru for testing and the tests confirmed that the distilled water contained 53.43% of alcohol in it.

Case filed

Based on the complaint filed by the manager of the hospital Prashant Mallya, the city police have registered a case. In his complaint, Mr Mallya has accused vested interests of deliberately doing the said act in order to defame the chief of the hospital and also to cause danger to the patients who are being treated in the hospital.

Udupi station officer Anant Padmanabha is leading a police team and investigating the case. The distilled water cans have been seized by the cops.