9 babies die, unfazed Minister justifies case

9 babies die, unfazed Minister justifies case
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

CALCUTTA, SEPT 25: West Bengal Health Minister Partha De today sought a report on the death of nine infants in the state-run B C Roy Children's Hospital over the weekend and said the casualties were not due to any lapse in treatment.

"The medical history of these deaths is being collected and the report will come to me soon. I can tell you that the deaths were not due to neglect or inefficient treatment," De told newspersons at the State Secretariat here.

The Minister said that the three children had died on Saturday and six others on Sunday due to various ailments and not solely due to septecaemia as reported in the press. "In such a big hospital, three to five casualties occur every day in the normal course. One cannot guarantee successful treatment of all cases," he said.

On whether the state government would order an inquiry into the incident, De said the hospital had not recieved any complaint as yet from the guardians of the deceased children. "Only the local people have agitated on the issue but we have recieved no complaints from the parents. So the question of an investigation does not arise."

Hospital Superintendent Anup Mandal said the 250-bedded medicare centre, the only government paediatric hospital in West Bengal, recieved large number of direct and referred cases every day.

"It is difficult for us to accommodate all of them and we are forced to accommodate more than one child per bed, but only with the consent of parents," he said denying that there was an outbreak of septecaemia in the hospital.