Infant death toll mounts to 63 in Cuttack hospital

A day after Odisha government refused to accept the central assistance for health care facilities at the Sishu Bhawan, the paediatric hospital in Cuttack registered four more crib deaths on Thursday, taking the toll to 63 in past two weeks.

Following the visit of a central team in Cuttack last week, the Union health ministry had deputed a team of six senior resident doctors to assist the under-staffed Sishu Bhawan to stem the rise in infant deaths, but the state refused to accept the assistance following which the central team was asked to go back on Thursday.

The hospital spokesperson said that there were four more crib deaths on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Odisha Bharatiya Janata Party spokesman Sajjan Sharma said, "This is nothing but sheer ego by the state government which came from the ruling party's brute majority in the Assembly."

He said when the paediatric hospital is currently having 21 vacancies against a sanctioned strength of 48 doctors, including 18 posts of assistant professors and two senior resident doctors, it is not comprehensible as to why the state refused to accept the central assistance.

Sharma said a team of senior resident doctors -- each in  paediatrics, paediatrics surgery, pathology, biochemistry, radiology and microbiology -- had come from New Delhi to man the Sishu Bhawan for about a week as these doctors are considered to be the main workforce of any hospital.

"But the Odisha government humiliated them by not accepting their assistance," the BJP spokesman said.

The state government changed the Sishu Bhawan administrative officer on Thursday in an apparent aim to instill discipline among the staff.

Last week the state had put six employees of the hospital under suspension and registered FIRs against three.