Baramulla, Dec 16: News about her neonate dying due to the alleged negligence of hospital authorities has left Dilshada, mother of one of the neonates, speechless. She remembers that she gave birth to a male child weighing around 3 kgs and the child was doing well.
 Dilshada is not in a position to utter any word and instead through signs is asking the reason for her baby’s death. “We don’t understand how to convey her that she lost her child because of a few liters of diesel. Had they started generator for a few hours, the life of my child could have been saved,” said Tariq Ahmad, Dilshada’s husband.
 The death of two neonates on Friday in the newly set up Special New Born Care Unit in District hospital Baramulla has sent shockwaves across this north Kashmir district.
 The hospital authorities had set up this new unit nearly a month back and had imparted special training to three nurses in New Delhi to run this unit. However, on Friday when both the neonates died due to the ‘negligence’ of the hospital authorities none of these “trained” nurses were present in the unit.
 The only nurse present in the special care unit was a multipurpose health worker deployed through NRHM.
 “When my baby was handed over to me we took him for routine medical checkup. The doctor pointed out that the umbilical cord of the baby was not properly tied and blood was oozing out from his belly. He advised us to get it tied again and prescribed a few injections,” said a father of one of the neonates. “Later doctors told us to admit the neonate in the newly set up unit of the hospital,” he added.
 At around 5 am on Friday, the electricity of the hospital went off and two infants admitted in the hospital were left shriving in cold for around four hours due to which both the infants died.
 According to sources, despite heaving two functional generators in the hospital, none of the generators was started by the hospital authorities leading to the severe hypothermia to both the neonates.
 “As the electricity went off, no one bothered to start the generator. Even the doctors deployed on night duty did not bother to visit the ward,” family members of the neonates said.

Lastupdate on : Sun, 16 Dec 2012 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sun, 16 Dec 2012 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Mon, 17 Dec 2012 00:00:00 IST