Just-born baby has fatal fall in Khammam govt hospital

Khammam: Yet another example of the terrible state of government-run hospitals surfaced on Sunday when a mother lost her baby because she was forced to deliver on a bench and the baby rolled off it onto the floor. 

Ms P. Nagamani, 22, came to the Khammam district headquarters hospital at 4.30 pm on Saturday, after her labour pains started. The doctor on duty informed her that her delivery date was October 26, and told her to come next month.

Ms Nagamani tried to explain that she was suffering severe pain, but, shockingly, nobody paid any heed to her. Since she couldn’t stand or walk, she lay on a bench on the verandah while her relatives tried to convince the hospital staff to admit her. 

She stayed that way till 12.30 am on Sunday, when the pains intensified and her husband and mother continued to plead with the staff to attend to her. 

Ms Nagamani delivered a male baby half an hour later, while lying on the bench. The baby rolled off the bench and fell to the ground and was badly injured.

Even after the baby died almost certainly as a result of this negligence and the injury, the hospital staff did not give Ms Nagamani a bed, the family alleged

The child was taken to the intensive care unit in an attempt to show that the hospital had provided some treatment. Mr Nagamani was allotted a bed only after media persons arrived at the hospital. A police constable who was called in by the hospital, tried to convince Mr Nagamani and her family to leave the hospital.

The nurses claimed that the baby had not died because of the fall from the bench but because it was a premature delivery. Relatives of Ms Nagamani took the body of the baby to their village. No police case has been registered and no post-mortem was done.