RAIPUR: In a shocking incident, a parent from Gaya district in Bihar lost their two-month-old baby girl after the door of an emergency ambulance service - Sanjeevani Express, failed to open owing to some snag and she reportedly died owing to suffocation. The couple arrived at the Raipur railway station on Tuesday.
At the platform when the baby began facing difficulty in breathing, the father immediately called the ambulance service-108 that took her and the parents to Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Medical hospital - the government's biggest health care facility in the capital.
"When we reached the hospital the door of the ambulance got jammed for almost two hours as the driver and the attendant struggled to open it. My plea to them to break open the window glass was not heeded. My child gasping for breath when brought to hospital died", said the father Ambika Kumar.
Kumar informed that after consulting doctors in Delhi and Bihar he came to Raipur for treatment of her daughter who was suffering from congenital heart disease. She was to be taken to Sri Sathya Sai heart care hospital at Naya Raipur where the treatment is offered free of cost under the child health care facility. But as her health condition deteriorated the driver immediately took her to Ambedkar hospital, which is barely a kilometre and a half from the railway station.
"Prima facie it appears to be a negligence act by the concerned department staff. Why the staff didn't break the glass when the door was locked? The child was suffocated to death after the door of the ambulance, in which the oxygen supply was exhausted, couldn't open for nearly two and a half hours", the leader of opposition T S Singhdeo said and demanded action against those blameworthy.
However the public relation officer of sanjeevani express-108 services, Pankaj Rahangdale claimed there was no negligence on their part and it barely took 15 minutes to move the baby from the ambulance to hospital ward. "When the gate of the ambulance couldn't open for 15 minutes apparently owing to some fault, the driver broke the window glass and shifted the baby. It didn't take over two hours as alleged", he added.
The paramedic staff in the ambulance Shankar Lala Sahu contended that the pulse, blood prssure and the heart rate of the baby girl was not functioning when she was being shifted to the hospital. The chief minister Raman Singh however assured the strict action would be taken against those found guilty.