JOIN USTwo newborns died due to overheating in neonatal warmers at one of Kolkata’s leading state-run hospitals last Friday, raising questions over the condition of public healthcare system in West Bengal.
While the city has often been in the news for infant deaths at government hospitals, the latest incident is a new low for the state’s public healthcare system.
Sources at Calcutta Medical College Hospital, one of Asia’s oldest medical colleges, informed that two newborns, a boy and a girl, died after the temperature of the radiant warmer was not properly monitored by nurses at the neonatal ward. Though the deaths occurred on November 20, the matter came to notice after the parents lodged a formal complaint on Wednesday. The parents alleged that nurses were not around to monitor the temperature, which needs to be checked at periodic intervals.
“There was a shortage of warmers and some even had two or three babies in them. Nurses were not around and we were made to check the temperature and unhook the thermometer before taking the baby out of the warmer,” the parents said.
Childcare experts at private hospitals said that warmers are meant for individual infants since the required temperature varies.Admitting lack of monitoring, a senior health department official said that the state health department has formed a four-member committee to look into the incident.
“The babies were suffering from critical hypothermia and they were put in radiant warmers to bring up their body temperature. There should have been constant monitoring since an infant cannot withstand heat the way an adult can,” the official said.
Prominent paediatricians said that radiant warmers are used to maintain the body temperature of newborns.
“Hypothermia is quite common among newborns, primarily due to the physiological transition from relatively warmer uterine environment to life outside,” said Dr Bainabi Halder.