Food poisoning in Pune: 88 hostel girls discharged

All eighty-eight girl students of the hostel run by Karvenagar-based Maharshi Karve Stree Shikshan Sanstha (MKSSS), admitted to two hospitals on Friday for food poisoning, were discharged on Saturday.

The students had consumed masurachi aamti (brown lentil curry) on Friday afternoon and poha at 6 pm the same day.

Speaking to DNA, the MKSSS director, Ravindra Deshpande said that the hostel canteen was run by an in-house unit called the Mahila Ashram Sanstha.   

“We will be investigating the matter and take action against the guilty,”
Deshpande said.
Deshpande said, “We rushed the girls to Deenanath Mangeshkar and Mai Mangeshkar hospitals on Friday noon after some of them complained of stomach ache and vomiting. All of them were discharged on Saturday and their condition is stable.”

He said of the total hostel strength of five hundred girl students, 88 were admitted to hospitals, including five who are studying in standard V; while the others are standard VII and XII students of various schools and colleges in the city.  “The hostel provides breakfast and two meals to students daily. However, this is the first time that such an incident has happened in the hostel in the past 24 years of my service,” Deshpande said.

The hostel sources said some parents have taken their wards home.
The assistant inspector of Warje Malwadi police station, DD Salunke, said, “We have not received any complaint from the hostel authority.”

Warje’s Mai Mangeshkar hospital medical superintendent, Dr Shirish Bhatlavande, told DNA that 40 students were kept under observation since Friday night before discharging them on Saturday morning. “The students, aged between 12 and 16 years, showed symptoms of stomach pain, diarrhoea and vomiting. All the girls were sent back to the hostel after calming their fears,”
Bhatlavande said.

The 48 students, including 10 paediatric cases, that were sent to Deenanath Mangeshkar hospital also showed similar symptoms. The hospital’s senior physician, Dr Chandrashekhar Gadre told DNA,  “Rather than being seriously sick or breathless, we noticed that the students were scared because of the recent Bopodi school incident, where many students had suffered food poisoning.”