Kolkata: Two newborn babies were burnt to death at Calcutta Medical College & Hospital due to negligence of the medical staff on duty.
According to reports, the infants were in radiant warmers when temperatures rose to unacceptable levels, leading to their death.
“There were three babies in that particular radiant warmer, and the temperate probe — which acts as a thermostat — was attached to one of the babies. However, for some reason, the mother of the child had removed that baby without attaching the probe onto the other two and the temperature kept on increasing,” said a worker at the hospital.
Incubators and radiant warmers are used to maintain the body temperature of newborn infants.
This incident has not only raised questions about the neonatal care in the state, but the lack of monitoring that the children admitted there go through.
“My babies were murdered due to negligence of the staff. This is unacceptable. We had admitted them to recover, but we paid the highest price,” said Sonam Bagchi, the mother of one of the deceased babies.
Nurses say, in state-run hospitals, the demand for such machines is so high that they are forced to keep more than one child in the incubators at any given time, which led to this accident.
“By the time we realised, both the children had turned red and we could not recover them,” a nurse who witnessed the tragedy said.
“The problem is that government hospitals have all the required machinery but the staff is not adequately trained to handle it. Also allowing the patient party to handle the machinery is a criminal offence and it generally leads to such incidents,” said Sandipa Chakraborty, paediatrician in the city.
The families of the newborns have filed an official complaint to hospital superintendent Shika Banerjee and medical college principal Tapan Kumar Lahiri and a committee has been formed to investigate the matter.
“This is a serious issue, and we are investigating the same. All doctors and nurses who were on duty on that day have been asked to face the committee on Monday,” Lahiri said. The state health department has also stepped in and a special task force that had been earlier formed for mother and child health development has asked for a report by next week.
“The moment we heard the news we had ordered an inquiry. such negligence is not acceptable and those guilty much face punishment,” said Tridib Banerjee, chairman of the task force.
However, there is an air of secrecy at the hospital and most of the staff on duty refused to speak to Gulf News. “The departmental head and the administration has threatened us not to speak to the press,” said a doctor unwilling to be named.
However, the families of the babies are demanding justice. “The government should answer as to how they brunt my child alive,” said Sonam.
