Politics and negligence take 12 children lives

Now, 12 crib deaths in Burdwan hospital

Inquiry Ordered Following Directive From Mamata

Debajyoti Chakraborty TNN 29.10.2011

UNDER SCANNER: The paediatric ward of BMCH

Burdwan: A day after Kolkata’s BC Roy child hospital was given a clean chit on the death of 12 children, another 12 have reportedly died in the pediatrics ward of Burdwan Medical College Hospital (BMCH) over the last two days. The hospital on Friday sent a prima facie report to the state health department, but chief minister Mamata Banerjee has directed top health officials to visit the hospital to probe the cause of the deaths. 
    Following Mamata’s directive, director of medical education Susanta Banerjee and health and family welfare commissioner Dilip Ghosh reached the hospital on Friday and initiated a probe. They held meetings with hospital superintendent Gadadhar Mitra and BMCH principal Sarit Choudhury. 
    Talking to TOI, BMCH deputy superintendent Tapas Kumar Ghosh said: “At present, around 160 babies are admitted in the pediatric ward which has only 60 beds. The one- to three-day-old babies were underweight and have been suffering from various disease like encephalitis, septicemia and jaundice. These led to their deaths,” he added. 
    The authority admitted that hospital staff work under serious pressure as hundreds of patients are referred here from other districts. Infrastructural bottleneck and lack of manpower add to the problem, but the deaths were not caused due to negligence, a source said. 
    “So far, none has lodged any official complaint,” said Ghosh. There have been no agitation in the hospital due to the deaths. Hospital sources said three to four babies die everyday on an average. 
    The two ministers of this district — law minister Maloy Ghatak and science and technical education minister Rabiranjan Chattopadhyay — visited BMCH earlier and tried to improve the facilities but the situation has hardly improved. At present, there’s neither a neo-natal unit nor a sick neo-natal care unit in BMCH.


And more deaths continue...........

Four more babies die at BC Roy

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 29.10.2011

Parents wait outside BC Roy Hospital on Friday 28.10.2011

Kolkata: Four more babies died at BC Roy Post Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences on Friday with the hospital administration maintaining that the deaths were inevitable since the infants had been brought in a critical state. The health department said it was taking steps to check crib deaths at BC Roy, which is the biggest referral paediatric hospital in the state. 
    A state-of-the-art sick newborn unit will be thrown open by October 31. It will have 30 to 40 beds and equipment that have so far not been used in the hospital. Apart from raising the number of beds, it will also let the hospital provide better care to critical patients. “It’s going to be a big step. Babies with low birth weight and infections will be accommodated there. We hope to be able to check the number of deaths once the unit starts rolling next week,” said D K Pal, superintendent of the 300-bed hospital. 
    Critically ill babies at government hospitals, referred to BC Roy, will now be provided free transport. Ambulances will be stationed at district hospitals to move critically ill babies to BC Roy. This will help curb the mortality rate. 
    A senior official said pregnant women will also be given the facility. The ministry has also instructed all hospitals to create a patient-friendly environment, other than arranging chairs for pregnant women in the waiting space outside labour rooms. 
    A recent visit by a central team found a lack of user-friendly amenities in hospitals apart from poor sanitation. A drive to correct these will begin from November. 
    Terming Friday’s deaths as “unavoidable”, Pal said while three of the four infants were underweight, one had meningitis. “They weighed between 1.8 kg and 2.2 kg and carried infections. As often happens, these babies were brought in very late. They couldn’t be saved,” said Pal. 
    The hospital has started counselling parents of critically ill babies in a bid to apprise them of the situation. Doctors are going around the wards, interacting with mothers and keeping theminformed about their babies’ condition. “We are telling them about the exact state of the child so that they have a fair idea about the chances of survival. We don’t want patients to harbour false hopes and accuse the hospital of negligence,” Pal added. 
    Meanwhile, the health department is planning to implement the Janani-Shishu Suraksha Karyakram launched last August. Under the scheme, treatment is supposed to be free for newborn babies and their mothers for the first three days. Sick newborns will be treated free of charge for a month. Medicines, diagnosis, provision for blood transfusion and food will also be provided free of charge. They will also have access to free transportation from home to hospital. 
    Meanwhile, People for Better Treatment (PBT) — an NGO that fights for patients’ rights — sought details of the inquiry into the crib deaths at BC Roy Hospital along with their medical records. It also called for an independent inquiry into the deaths, by a physician. PBT president Kunal Saha, who won a record compensation of Rs 1.77 crore last week for medical negligence leading to his wife’s death, said a case will be filed on behalf of the parents who lost their children at BC Roy.