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Infant deaths in India expose state failure

Shortage of basic facilities and outbreaks of diseases like encephalitis, main cause says church health official
Infant deaths in India expose state failure

A child being treated at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur on Aug. 12. More than 400 such children have died in this hospital since August due to encephalitis and oxygen shortage. (Photo by IANS) 

Published: September 21, 2017 04:12 AM GMT
Updated: September 21, 2017 04:30 AM GMT

The deaths of hundreds of babies and infants in Indian hospitals — linked in large part to contagious diseases such as encephalitis and a lack of medical oxygen — shows the health system is failing the poor.

In one hospital alone, Baba Raghav Das in Utter Pradesh, 110 infants are reported to have died due to Acute Encephalitis Syndrome in the first eight days of September.

Since July, more than 600, most of them infants, died in government hospitals in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

Media reports indicate that many of the deaths were attributable to a shortage of medical oxygen, ventilators and incubators.

In some cases, supplies of oxygen cylinders and other essential items had been cut off due to unpaid bills, said Mathew Perumpil, secretary of the office of health of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.

He said mothers took their babies and infants to government hospitals as they could not afford private hospitals.

The women came with complications in their pregnancies or with babies and infants that were under weight, jaundiced or sick with diseases such as pneumonia and encephalitis. 

Public outrage has built since August with media reports about the infant deaths in Baba Raghav Das medical college in Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh due to encephalitis and an oxygen shortage.

At least 416 deaths have reported in this hospital since the beginning of August, the media reported.

At least 55 infants died in the district hospital of Nasik in the western Indian state of Maharashtra in August. Some 130 children died there between March and July. 

Another 49 children died during July-August in Ram Manohar Lohia hospital in Farrukhabad district of Uttar Pradesh. The Mahatma Gandhi Hospital in Banswara district of western Rajasthan state reported the death of 90 newborns.

 

A system failure

A Catholic nun in Gorakhpur, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ucanews.com that most victims came from interior villages of India bordering Nepal.

"The villages' primary health care centers lack facilities, doctors and staff," she said.

"The patients are given basic medicines and if the situation worsens, they are referred to a government-run medical college."

Almost all state-run medical colleges, which purportedly have specialized care facilities, are over-crowded.

The Gorakhpur medical facility, for example, has to accommodate three to four children on one bed at any given time, said the nun who frequently visits the hospital.

Father Perumpil called it a systemic failure.

He said village primary care facilities should be equipped to care for pregnant women.

"By the time a pregnant mother or an infant reaches the district hospital or state-level medical college, their situation is already complicated," Father Perumpil said.

"Lack of space, a shortage of basic facilities and outbreaks of diseases like encephalitis add to the problem."

He said in past decades nuns trained as nurses ran hundreds of village-level care centers and dispensaries.

The work of these centers included looking after pregnant women.

However, this is no longer the case as the result of a 2010 law that closed such church facilities.

The Clinical Establishments Act regulated all medical facilities with a view to ensuring minimum standards.

The new law banned surgery and the dispensing of medicine without the involvement of a qualified medical doctor.

"We have no role in primary health care in India anymore," the priest said, adding that the Catholic village dispensaries now operate only to create greater awareness of health issues.

The Catholic Church's involvement in medical care has been limited to some 1,000 hospitals, ranging from 50-200 beds, mostly in the cities and towns of India.

Father Arockia Dass, assistant director of the church-run Holy Family Hospital in New Delhi, told ucanews.com that infant deaths were largely due to a "lack of responsibility" in the management of government health facilities. 

"Doctors are given good salaries as are government employees," he said.

"They do not fear any disciplinary action."

He added that patients, who looked to government doctors for mercy and free medicine, seldom complained about poor treatment.

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