Just 2 nurses for 30 newborns: Parents
A member of the child welfare committee has already visited the hospital
Dharmapuri: For 13 days, Prema Muniraj’s child was battling for life at the neo-natal unit of Dharmapuri government hospital. For the Prema and Muniraj couple, she was the first child. “The child had fits. They didn’t tell us she will survive. We have lost our first kid,” sobbed Muniraj.
Over the last two weeks, Muniraj says he had a bitter experience at the hospital. “I had to physically carry the oxygen cylinder to the Intensive care unit because there was no staff to transport it.
Also, there is a scarcity of medicines. I was asked to buy most of the medicines,” he said. Worse still, for 30 children on incubators, there are just two staff nurses. And child specialists are not available round the clock, he said.
Besides, mosquitoes swarm the hospital and sneak into the intensive care unit also, say parents of the children admitted at the neo-natal unit.
“Some kids have suffered mosquito bites too. After media reports of five deaths on Friday, fumigation has been done to clear the mosquitoes and bleaching powder has been streaked on the hospital campus,”said Periyasamy, who lost his newborn girl on Monday.
The district child welfare committee has decided to inspect the facilities at the neo-natal unit of the hospital.”
A member of the child welfare committee has already visited the hospital. A team will inspect the hospital soon to find out if the infants are being given proper care,”said M.S. Saravanan, who heads the Dharmapuri district child welfare committee.