VISAKHAPATNAM: A shocking video of a grieving couple emerged carrying their 14-day-old baby’s dead body for over 100 km on a two-wheeler from King George Hospital (KGH) in Visakhapatnam to Paderu after they were allegedly denied an ambulance service by the staff on Thursday.
The deceased infant, who was born in Paderu on February 2, had been brought to KGH with a condition called ‘perinatal asphyxia’. The infant was on ventilator support till she breathed her last early on Thursday.
The parents alleged that the KGH staff cited that there was a lack of ambulances in the hospital and denied to provide the service to carry the corpse home. After riding pillion with the baby’s body for such a long stretch, an ambulance was arranged in Paderu to their native village at Kumada in Alluri Sitarama Raju district.
However, Superintendent of KGH Dr Ashok Kumar said that the ambulance service was delayed but not denied.” Had the family waited for a few more minutes, we would definitely have provided them with an ambulance. The baby died at 7:50 am and the entire handover process got over at 8:30 am.
We informed the Tribal cell within 10 minutes to arrange the ambulance. But the couple rushed the body before ambulance could have reached the block. Ambulance was arranged at around 9:15 am. We informed DMHO and ITDA PO of Paderu about incident. The staff traced them and got an ambulance arranged in Paderu,” he explained.
He ruled out the remarks on KGH lacking ambulances. He clarified that there were adequate ambulances to cater to the people, including those coming from far-flung areas.