Jaipur
A day after nine infants died at a hospital in Kota, the government sprang into action and started a new 12-bed ICU ward for newborns at the facility on Friday.
The newborns died at the JK Lon government hospital attached to the Kota Medical College within a span of eight hours on Thursday. All the infants were between one and seven-days old. On Friday, a team of experts was rushed to the hospital from Jaipur on the directions of Health minister Raghu Sharma.
The ICU ward for newborns was started with 12 beds equipped with warmers and oxygen. Surprisingly, the ward was ready for several days but had not been started.
JK Lon hospital superintendent Dr SC Dulara said the deaths occurred because the newborns had potentially fatal medical conditions.
Sharma said a 54-bed Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and a 21-bed PICU was being developed and a new hospital building with 154 beds is being built, and will be ready next year.
Meanwhile, state BJP president Satish Poonia criticised the government for its insensitive attitude and said no steps were taken to improve the crumbling health infrastructure in the state.
Kota South MLA Sandeep Verma of the BJP visited the hospital and met officials and families of the children. He said the government failed to provide adequate infrastructure and equipment nor had it managed to address the shortage of staff.
In December last year, the Congress govt had come under fire after 107 infants had died in a span of 35 days at the hospital. It led to a public outcry against the crumbling health infrastructure in the state.
