Seven infants die in Vijayawada hospital

Condition of one more baby is said to be critical

Krishna district Collector Peeyush Kumar has ordered an inquiry to find out whether failure of incubators led to the deaths. Doctors at the Government General Hospital claimed that three of the babies died a natural death. Nine newborn babies are currently in incubators and condition of one of them is said to be critical.
Tension prevailed at the hospital as irate parents sat on dharna, alleging that their children died due to the negligence of the doctors.

Resident medical officer of the hospital P Ramagopal said that they were inquiring into the actual cause of the death of the babies.
Telugu Desam Party MLA Devineni Umamaheswara Rao visited the hospital and blamed the doctors for the deaths. Local MLA Malladi Vishnu of the Congress also visited the hospital.

Report sought
Meanwhile, taking a serious note of the death of infants in Vijayawada allegedly because of the strike by junior doctors, the state human rights body on Monday directed officials to submit a report in the matter by Tuesday.
“Medical profession falls under the (category of) emergency service. A doctor has no right to strike work,” the Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission said in an order, taking suo motu cognisance of the deaths.

“Striking the work is certainly a professional misconduct and stringent action has to be taken against such misconduct. It is not understandable as to why the principal secretary in the health department has not taken this aspect into consideration and as to why necessary disciplinary and criminal action has not been taken,” it said.
The director of health and the district medical and health officer of Krishna district should have taken alternative steps to attend to patients, the Commission said.
Such inaction on part of the officials is also serious violation of the human rights, it asserted.