Toddler falls off 2nd floor in Gr Noida, gets hospitalized 50km away in Delhi due to referrals

A one-and-a-half-year-old boy got injured after falling from the second-floor of his house, following which his family was “referred” from one hospital to another in Gautam Buddh Nagar before getting him admitted in a government facility in Delhi, his father claimed.

The Gautam Buddh Nagar administration, however, has refuted reports that claimed the boy was denied treatment at “at least half a dozen hospitals” in Noida and Greater Noida.

It said no such fact has emerged in its initial probe that the toddler was denied admission by any private or government hospital in the district, but they were “referred” to better facilities by some, which did not have MRI and CT scan services available.

The incident took place on Wednesday morning in Dadha village in Greater Noida when the toddler, Dev, fell off his second-floor house while playing, according to officials.

He was then rushed to three to four hospitals in Greater Noida and Noida one after the other, before being sent to Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi, where his condition is stable now and out of danger, they said.

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His father Roshan had on Wednesday said in a purported video that he had to carry his child to three hospitals none of which admitted the boy.

On Thursday, Gautam Buddh Nagar officials visited the village and contacted Roshan as part of an inquiry into media reports, which were found baseless and far from facts, Deputy Collector, Sadar, Prasunn Dwivedi said.

“Dev's father Roshan said the child was taken to the primary health care centre in the village where after check up he was referred to the district hospital (in Noida). The father then said that since the district hospital was far, they took the boy to private Ivory Hospital in Sector 36 of Greater Noida where immediate initial treatment was provided. However, this hospital did not have MRI and CT scan facilities and suggested the boy be taken to a hospital which has these facilities and were provided with an ambulance,” Dwivedi said.

The deputy collector said Roshan was accompanied by his employer, Dooj Ram, who too has told the officials that none of the private hospitals or government facilities denied treatment to the boy.

“However, it has come to light that they were referred to hospitals which have MRI or CT Scan facilities for better care of the boy,” he added.

Dwivedi said the boy was currently recuperating at the Safdarjung hospital in Delhi where his condition is stable and he is out of danger.

One of the leading government medical facilities in the country, the Safadarjung Hospital in located in the heart of Delhi, roughly 51 km from the child's Dadha village in Dankaur tehsil of Gautam Buddh Nagar.

On June 5, an eight-month pregnant woman had died in an ambulance outside a government hospital in Greater Noida. The woman was denied admission in at least seven hospitals including three government facilities during a 13-hour frantic search, amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The incident brought to the fore the issue of medical negligence and unavailability of care during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, even as politicians had latched on to it to slam the BJP-led government in the state.

The National Human Rights Commission had on June 8 issued a notice to the Uttar Pradesh government over media reports of alleged medical negligence towards the pregnant woman.

The district administration had ordered a probe into the case. The probe found lapses on the part of the three state-run hospitals – the district hospital, ESIC in Noida and Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) in Greater Noida, besides the private hospitals - Shivalik, Sharda, Fortis and Max (in Ghaziabad).