Dying in the Cradle

 

 

Thirtyeight infants die in 40 days! Not due to an epidemic but by hospital-acquired infection. This is the state of affairs in the Kerala Government-run Sri Avittam Thirunal Hospital (SAT) in Thiruvananthapuram. The threat of more deaths stares the hapless patients. The Additional Judicial Magistrate has directed the police to file a case against the Health Minister and the hospital staff for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. They did not try to check the infection in spite of a report given by the microbiology lab. Health Minister P.K.Sreemathi sacked the SAT superintendent K. Rajmohan even as State Human Rights Commission Chairman Justice N.Dinakar filed a suo motu case against the hospital. Sreemathi has constituted a three-member committee to report on the requirements needed for the upgradation of SAT hospital. She promised Rs 1 crore from the National Rural Health Mission forimproving the facilities at the hospital.





A death a day

38 children die in 40 days

Case of culpable homicide against health minister

Rs 1 crore promised to upgrade hospital facilities

In the past, a Governor died of infection in hospital



A sum of Rs 25 lakh has already been sanctioned from the Rural Health Mission Scheme. But, local people treat all these as eyewash. Fortyseven cleaning staff was appointed in the hospital due to mounting public protests. The hospital authorities took cleaning in right earnest and disinfected the hospital, but only after the tragedy! Microbiological tests proved that the cause of the deaths was the growth of Klebsiella bacteria in the hospital premises. This hospital used to have around 7 to 11 neonatal deaths a month for various reasons but the figure shot up 35 in recent months.

Lapping up the opportunity, the opposition leader Oommen Chandy said, “It’s a grave failure of the government. It has not fulfilled its assurances made when chikungunya struck Kerala. The situation is the same in every hospital.’’ But, this was not first incident of medical negligence in Kerala. Governor Sikander Bakth had died of infection at the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College three years ago. Unhygienic conditions, inadequate equipment and insufficient staff make a government hospital vulnerable to infections. It could only be a miracle that such a tragedy didn’t take place earlier.