NEW DELHI: A newborn boy died hours after his birth here allegedly due to lack of access to critical care facilities at a Delhi government-run hospital, the second such infant death in the capital within a week.
The baby, who was born yesterday morning, was first rushed to Sanjay Gandhi Memorial Hospital (SGMH) and thenlater taken to Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, where he was declared "brought dead" by doctors.
The baby, was born at home to Manoj, 27, and Tulsi, 22,after seven months of her pregnancy, doctors said.
"Our baby was delivered at home by a midwife, who then alerted us that he was having some breathing problems, andtold us to take him to the nearest hospital. So, we rushed thebaby to SGMH," Manoj said.
"But, doctors, there (at SGMH) said, the hospital did nothave the oxygen facilities needed for the child and referredus to Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, where we then rushed to, but in vain," he alleged.
The SGMH authorities, however, denied the allegation,claiming, "the parents left the hospital on their own, withoutinforming anyone".
"The baby was brought to the pediatric casualtydepartment and he was initially attended to by junior andsenior resident doctors," SGMH Medical Superintendent P SNayyer told PTI.
A senior pediatrician was later attending to him, the when another child developed a seizure, and so he had to go andattend to the other child, Nayyer said.
"Meanwhile, the parents of the baby left withoutinforming any staff at the hospital," he claimed.
The distance between SGMH and Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital, that are both northwest Delhi, is about 4-5 km. Theytravelled in an e-rickshaw to Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospitalfrom SGMH and took about one hour because of traffic.
The couple's first child, a three-and-a-half- year-oldboy, was also born at SGMH.
The death was the second such fatality within a week inDelhi as last Thursday a newborn girl had died also allegedlydue to lack of critical care facilities.
The death of the newborn yesterday also comes just days after Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal had directed HealthMinister Satyendar Jain to come up with a "concrete actionplan" within a week on providing life support system for critical patients in the city's government hospitals.
Nayyer said after the incident an inquiry panel was setup and the panel submitted its report in the evening.
"According to the report, child was born premature (of seven-month-pregnancy) at home. He did not show any respiratory distress and so was not put on a ventilator. Wehave one ventilator in child casualty department, and it wasunused when the baby was brought to SGMH," Nayyer said.
"We have seven oxygen supply units at the hospital andso, the reason he was not put on a ventilator, was because, itwas not recommended by doctors, and not because we lacked it," he claimed.
Ventilator is a machine designed to facilitate breathing for a patient who is physically unable to breathe, orbreathing insufficiently.
A senior doctor said babies born of seven-monthpregnancies can survive as long as they weigh at least 500gm.
Ashok Aggarwal, an advocate and member of the Delhi HighCourt-constituted EWS Patients Monitoring Committee, expressedhis shock over the incident and blamed the hospital.
"When a baby was in need of medical care, the doctor went to attend to another baby. Was there no other doctor? This newborn should have been properly attended and which the SGMHauthorities did not," he alleged.
According to a statement released by the Delhi government earlier this week, the primary objective of the concrete action plan sought by Kejriwal was to ensure that the "live data" of functional critical care facilities in all Delhigovernment hospitals is readily and easily available in thefirst place.
It has been noticed in a number of cases that familymembers or relatives or friends of patients in criticalcondition, who rush them to hospitals, are turned away, citingthe common excuses of either lack of facilities or nonavailability of beds, the Delhi government had said.