The Union Health Ministry on Saturday ordered an enquiry after the parents of a seven-year-old boy, who died of dengue on September 8 after he was allegedly denied admission by two prominent private
hospitals in Delhi, jumped to death from the fourth floor of a building in South Delhi’s lado Sarai.
Health Minister JP Nadda tweeted, “Ordered enquiry into incident reported in media involving death of child in Delhi due to dengue and subsequent suicide by parents. Guilty won’t be spared.”
The Delhi Government too issued show-cause notices on Saturday to five private hospitals in South Delhi for their alleged refusal to admit the boy, Avinash, who later died.
“Health Department has asked Moolchand Hospital (lajpat Nagar), Aakash Hospital (Malviya Nagar), Saket City Hospital, Max Hospital (Saket) and Irene Hospital (Kalkaji) to reply within one month why their registration should not be cancelled for their alleged refusal to admit an emergency patient who later lost his life,” said a senior Government official.
The couple’s bodies were discovered by a neighbour on the intervening night between Thursday and Friday. On September 8, the distraught parents, identified as laxmichandra and Babita Rout, both natives of Kendrapara district in Odisha, had performed the last rites of Avinash. They had tied their hands together with a stole before jumping from the building where they were staying on rent.
The couple left behind a one-page suicide note in Odia, in which they had written that “it is nobody’s fault” and “the decision” was theirs.
One of their neighbours in lado Sarai where they had lived for the last one year said laxmichandra worked with a company that provided services to Pizza Hut outlets while his wife Babita was a housewife.
The couple ran from pillar to post to get their sick child admitted to hospital but was turned away by Moolchand Hospital and Max Hospital at Saket, as the hospital administration cited lack of beds.
Batra Hospital and Medical Research Centre (BHMRC) agreed to admit Avinash, but it was too late by then and the boy died during treatment, police said.
BHMRC issued a statement: “We confirm that the patient was in a critical condition due to dengue. The child was brought at 11:05 pm to our casualty department in a very critical condition (on Monday) without pulse and blood pressure. Our physicians directly took the child to our paediatric ICU and gave all appropriate treatment available but despite our best efforts, he did not survive.”
Moolchand Hospital administration said in a statement that the “patient was stabilised and treated in the emergency ward but could not be admitted as there was no bed available”.
The police have initiated an inquest proceeding into the incident under Section 174 CrPC. No case has been registered so far in the matter.
The dengue death toll in the national Capital now stands at five although the Municipal Corporation is yet to include three deaths in the official list. According to municipal corporation data, 1,259 cases of dengue were reported in Delhi this year till September 5 with at least 428 cases coming in the first week of this month.