Negligence of doctors at the district hospital in Ballia led the to death of a 7-month-old child on Wednesday.
The shocking incident occurred when the doctors left it to a rickshaw-puller to administer injection to the infant. Though the state government and the Ballia administration claimed to have instituted a high-level probe into the incident, no action had so far been taken against the hospital administration despite it being
prima facie responsible for the death of the child.
The Ballia police had neither registered a case in this connection nor sent the infant’s body for autopsy till the time of filing this
report. This is not the first time that non-medical staff have been found treating patients in the Ballia district hospital but the authorities have overlooked the criminal negligence, claiming shortage of staff. According to reports, a rickshaw-puller, Raju, whose job is to transport dead bodies, administered injection to Ajay, a 7-month-old child suffering from septicaemia, at the Ballia district hospital.
The surgeon attending on the child had recommended a dose of the life-saving drug Primacord and asked the pharmacist to administer it. But, the pharmacist allegedly passed on the task to Raju. As soon as Raju administered the injection, the condition of the boy started deteriorating and within minutes he died before any doctor could attend on him. On coming to know about the child’s death, the hospital staff tried to hush up the incident but when the media highlighted it on television showing the visuals of the 7-month-old boy, senior officers and even the state Government reacted. State Health Minister Ahmed Hasan announced a high-level probe into the incident.
‘’It is a very unfortunate incident,’’ the minister said while reacting to the child’s death. He, however, refused to say anything further on the issue saying that action would be taken after the report was submitted. In the same hospital, a sweeper was caught on camera suturing the wound of a child last year. The doctor on duty at the emergency ward was subsequently suspended. The hospital’s chief medical superintendent, KP Singh, has denied that the visuals are of the same child who died, but admitted that a rickshaw-puller was administering injections and this may have resulted in the baby’s death.
‘’We are investigating what happened.
The baby, suffering from measles for days, was admitted on Monday. He was referred to the IMS Hospital
of Banaras Hindu University, but his parents brought him to our emergency ward when he became extremely critical,’’ he said.
The hospital is short of at least 80 doctors, nurses and para-medical staff, Dr Singh said in an attempt to justify treatment of patients by non-medical staff. He, however, added that there was no excuse for such criminal negligence and action would be taken.
The District Magistrate has also ordered a probe, but no arrests were made so far, nor was a case registered by the police. Raju, who has been jailed in the past for petty thefts, told reporters that he had been coming to hospital for the past 15-20 years and “can administer injections and give antibiotics prescribed by the doctors”. the rickshaw-puller said he and some others were put on the job by doctors who failed to attend all the patients.