Within hours of The Free Press Journal reporting deaths of 21 newborn children in a government hospital in Thane, the issue was raised in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on Friday (July 5) and now a state minister will visit the hospital and present statement in the House. FPJ has published the story on newborn deaths on front page of its July 5 edition.
FPJ reporters S Balakrishnan and Prashant Narvekar found that 21 newborn children had died over last month in Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Hospital in Kalwa.
What's more disturbing is that the deaths occurred in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of the hospital. This is the same hospital in which 18 deaths were recorded in a single day in December 2023.
Issue reaches state assembly
On Friday, the matter was raised in the Maharashtra assembly by Congress MLA Amin Patel. State minister Uday Samant has now assured that he will be visiting the hospital and will be presenting report via a statement in the house.
Kalwa is part of Thane District, the home-turf of Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. There hasn't been any public statement from him yet.
As they investigated horrific statistics, FPJ reporters spoke with hospital dean Dr Rakesh Barot. He confirmed that there indeed had been 21 newborn deaths in the hospital over last month.
He claimed that most of these babies were already in critical condition when they were brought to the hospital and that efforts to save them in private hospitals had failed.
“Most of the children concerned were the ones who did not receive treatment in the golden minute, which is the minute just after birth. By the time the kids are admitted to our hospital, precious time has already been lost and there is little that can be done medically to save them,” said Dr Jayesh Panot as he spoke with FPJ reporters.
(With inputs from S Balakrishnan and Prashant Narvekar)
