Srinagar, Aug 21: The attendants of infants admitted in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of GB Panth Hospital here were aghast after the oxygen supply to the ward got snapped for few minutes on Sunday.
 The NICU is connected to the Centralized Oxygen System in the hospital.
 While attendants alleged that the oxygen was snapped for more than five minutes, the Resident Medical Officer (RMO), Dr Tabasum rejected the allegations as baseless.
 “The supply got disrupted for not more than 10 seconds. It was due to technical fault. If it would have more than five minutes no neonate would have survived,” Dr Tabasum said.
 “The parents of the infants panicked for few minutes”, she said.
 However, Dr Tabasum accepted that there was dearth of warmers. “There are only 15 warmers against the daily inflow of more than 50 babies -who are kept in ICU at an average daily,” she said.
 The ICU of the hospital, the attendants alleged, was full of flies, mosquitoes and other insects that add risk of infection among the sensitive patients. “There was a lot of garbage in the ICU. The floor was dotted with blood stains and the sanitation staff not washing and cleaning the floor”, said Fayaz Ahmad, who is with his four month baby in the ICU.
 He said after lot of efforts a sweeper came and thoroughly cleaned over the floor.
 The medical officer said they are helpless against the lack of warmers in the ICU. “Sometimes we have to put more than four babies on the single warmer. The higher authorities should address the problem.”
 About the cleanliness in the ICU ward the RMO said the actual ICU was under ‘renovation’ and the system would be in place after sometime. “The present ward is the temporary and when the renovated ward will come up there would no complaints of cleanliness.”

Lastupdate on : Sun, 21 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 22 Aug 2011 00:00:00 IST