The month of August was riddled with hospital mishaps across the country, particularly Uttar Pradesh, and now a government hospital in remote Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol district has reported the deaths of 36 infants in August. However, the hospital administration had no clue about what went wrong.
According to Dr VD Sonwani, head of SNCU, “As many as 195 infants were admitted to the Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) in August and 36 of them died of reasons ranging from insufficient weight, ailments to premature delivery.”
Some staff members, however, attributed the deaths to improper facilities. “The hospital has four ventilators gathering dust, while no one has been trained so far to operate these life-saving machines,” a staffer from the government run hospital said on condition of anonymity.
Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) Dr Rajesh Pandey pleaded ignorance about the exact cause behind the increased number of deaths.
Dr Pandey further claimed that the infant mortality is being reviewed monthly and the data has shown gradual decline.
“I need to check it with our staff about the reasons behind the deaths in August,” said Dr Pandey.
Interestingly, the hospital based in Shahdol, about 550 kilometres from Bhopal, is the only ray of hope for the tribal population from the region. The institution has stayed in news for its callousness time and again, as the tribal population here is forced to bring in their ailing family members on cots from nearby districts for want of ambulances.
The pitiable state of affairs at this MP district had come to fore last year in May as Member of Parliament, Dalpat Singh Paraste suffered brain haemorrhage and died by the time he was airlifted to a Gurgaon hospital in Haryana.
