BHOPAL: Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, on Thursday condemned as “horrific, inhuman and insensitive” the deaths of two newborns bitten by rats in the Neonatal ICU of Indore’s MY Hospital, Madhya Pradesh’s largest government facility.
Rahul took to ‘X’ on the issue on Thursday. “In Indore, two newborn babies died due to rat bites in MP’s largest government hospital. This incident is so horrific, inhuman and insensitive that even hearing about it sends shivers down the spine.”
“Children have been snatched from mothers’ laps, simply because the government failed to fulfil its most basic responsibility. The health sector has been deliberately handed over to private hands, where treatment is only for the rich and for the poor, the government hospitals are no longer life-saving, but have become dens of death. The administration, as always says, there will be an investigation, but the question is, when you can’t even ensure the safety of newborn children, what right do you have to run the government?”
“PM Modi and the MP CM should hang their heads in shame. Your government has stripped millions of poor people in the country of their right to health, and now children are being snatched from their mothers’ laps. Modiji, this voice is rising on behalf of those lakhs of parents, who are today victims of governmental negligence. What will be your response?”
“We will not remain silent. This fight is for the rights of every poor person, every family, every child,” Gandhi posted on X on Thursday.
Back in Indore on Thursday, the Madhya Pradesh commissioner for public health and medical education Tarun Rathi, reportedly held meetings with the top officials of MGM Medical College and the MY Hospital.
He also reportedly visited the MY Hospital and took stock of the situation at the paediatric unit.
Rathi’s visit to Indore happened hours after the state’s CM Dr Mohan Yadav had announced a high-level probe into the entire episode of the biting of two newborns by rats at the NICU of the MY Hospital.
Two newborns – both baby girls – who were on ventilator support for treatment of congenital anomalies at the MY Hospital’s NICU, were bitten in the shoulder and fingers by rats on Sunday and Monday.
Both newborns died on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The MGM Medical College and MY Hospital administration have asserted that both deaths were caused by septicemia infection, which was unlikely to have been caused by abrasive injuries caused by rats at the NICU.
The MGM Medical College (MY Hospital is it’s tertiary care hospital) has so far suspended two nurses, removed the nursing superintendent from her post and issued show cause notices to multiple staff, including the head of the paediatric surgery department in the matter and also slapped a Rs one lakh fine on the pest control company.
A high-level committee comprising five doctors and a nursing officer has been constituted to probe the entire issue related to the ingress of rats in the NICU. The committee has been asked by the MGM Medical College to submit its report in seven days.
Meanwhile, the State Human Rights Commission has ordered a probe into the entire issue and sought a report from the hospital’s medical superintendent within a week.
Indore’s MY Hospital, where the tragic deaths of two newborns occurred, is Madhya Pradesh’s largest state-run medical facility and among the biggest government hospitals in central India.