On the issue of rising death tolls of infants at the Cuttack Sishu Bhavan and the MKCG Medical College Hospital, Brahmapur, hundreds of BJP workers here led by former Deputy Speaker Rama Chandra Panda, BJP district president Bijay Kumar Swain and former BMC Mayor Shiva Shankar Das staged a mass demonstration and sat on a dharna in front of the MKCG.
The BJP leaders condemned the silent and irresponsible attitude of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and State Health Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak on the horrible tragedy.
Patnaik has no time to visit the victims, nor oversee the infrastructure at place in the pediatric wards of the hospitals which is quite unfortunate, the leaders lamented.
Notably, while 52 infants died in Sishu Bhavan in Cuttack, 300 infants died in MKCG during last four months which created serious discontentment among the local public.
The party leaders made both Chief Minister Patnaik and Health Minister Nayak responsible for such horrible tragedy. Citing examples, the leaders said it is due to their in competencies, not only the death toll of infants is rising unabated in the State, but also crores of rupees of Central assistance which remain unutilized is being returned back to Centre. On the one hand, there is no infrastructure (in terms of required doctors, equipment, adequate beds, and medicines), on the other, the administrative machinery of the State is in doldrums, they complained.