India
Today: New Delhi: Sunday, 05 October 2014.
A state-run
hospital at Malda in West Bengal made news for the death of 16 children in 48
hours but one of the Capital's top government hospitals is well on its way to
setting a more dubious and shocking record, registering at least three infant
deaths a day for the past three years.
Abysmal
healthcare facilities and the lack of staff to operate vital equipment like
incubators and ventilators have caused the deaths of 3,373 children between
January 2011 and February 2014 at the Delhi Government-run Guru Teg Bahadur
(GTB) Hospital.
The 1,000-bed
hospital is not only the biggest in the trans-Yamuna region comprising East and
Northeast Delhi, but also caters to a large number of patients from western
Uttar Pradesh. The dearth of critical equipment like incubators and inadequate
manpower in the paediatric department are primarily blamed for the neo-natal
deaths. The hospital's management has also cited multiple diseases and
malnutrition as a primary cause of deaths.
One-fourth of
the hospital's 12 ventilators are not working while it has only two incubators
though it handles scores of deliveries every day.
The alarming
number of infant deaths was disclosed in the hospital's reply to a request for
information under the RTI Act by activist Narendra Sharma. Of the 18, 128
children admitted to the hospital during the three-year period, 3,373 or 18.6
per cent died.
More shocking
were the figures for the Paediatric ICU, which recorded a death rate of 40.6
per cent between January 2012 and February this year. Of the 588 children
admitted to this wing, 239 died, the data showed.
According to
the data, infants brought to GTB Hospital from other facilities were more
vulnerable. While a little over 16 per cent of babies born at GTB Hospital died
in the past three years, the percentage of fatalities among babies born at
other hospitals stood at 27.8 per cent during the same period.
In the first
two weeks of February this year alone, two of the five babies admitted to the
Paediatric ICU died.
The hospital
has no sanctioned posts for laboratory technicians and ICU technicians, the
vital staff responsible for operating equipment like ventilators and
incubators. But while neonatal fatalities at GTB Hospital have continued
unabated in recent years, the authorities appear to have done little to address
the situation.
'Not very
urgent'
The Medical
Superintendent of the hospital, Dr BK Jain refused to entertain queries from
MAIL TODAY, saying the matter was "not urgent" enough to discuss on a
holiday like Dussehra. He said he would respond only during "working
hours".
RTI activist
Narendra Sharma, however, alleged that complaints of equipment not functioning
and dearth of doctors and support staff were frequent at GTB Hospital. He said
the total casualties among all types of patients at the hospital too were
"alarmingly high".
Information
provided by the hospital support such claims. Essential equipment such as
incubators and ventilators, which are indispensible for caring for pre-term
babies, are either not available or inadequate in number.
The two
existing incubators are meant to cater only to babies born at the hospital and
it does not have any incubators for children born at other facilities.
Sources at
the hospital said the two incubators are insufficient when compared to the
total number of deliveries handled by the hospital every day.
"At the
same time, the incubators cannot be made available to infants that are brought
to GTB Hospital after being born elsewhere and this further reduces their
chances of survival. Moreover, of the four ventilators available in the ICU,
three are non-functional," said a source. This is not the first time that
GTB Hospital has made the news for all the wrong reasons.
Mail Today
earlier reported that critical care equipment was not functioning and surgical
instruments and over 120 essential medicines were not available at the
hospital.
CT scan,
ultrasound and X-ray machines were found to be out of order on several
occasions. While 12 anaesthesia monitors were out of order in June, the only
PCNL machine, which is used for kidney stone operations, too was non-functional
and this forced the hospital to turn away patients. Seven photo-therapy units
used for treating newborn children with low weight and jaundice too were not
working.
Erring
machines
According to
sources, the gynaecology's department only Color Doppler machine, which is used
for ultrasound tests, was non-functional and patients were sent to the
radiology department, which has two such machines.
Doctors said
15-20 Color Doppler cases from gynaecology were sent every day to the radiology
department, which already has the pressure of handling over 80 cases every day,
and this resulted in waiting periods of up to 25 days for patients.
Recently, a
woman delivered a baby at the gate of GTB Hospital after she was asked by its
authorities to get an ultrasound test done outside.
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