50,000 kids die in five years: What's wrong with the New Delhi's healthcare?



A hospital in Malda district of West Bengal is not the only healthcare centre where infant mortality is appallingly high.



The national Capital has a long list of hospitals where about 50,000 children have died in the last five years.



To put it more starkly, on an average, 10,000 children died every year in the 19 hospitals run by the central and state governments in Delhi.









The frightening figures were provided by these hospitals in reply to a query under the Right to Information.



Hospital sources blamed the neo-natal deaths on premature births, low-birth weight, neo-natal infections, birth asphyxia and birth trauma.

Children in the age group of one-to-five years died of septicaemia, sepsis, pneumonia and diarrhoeal diseases, indicating that but for apathy and poor facilities, hundreds of these children could have been saved.







The information under RTI has some more shocking revelations. Ironically, for instance, Delhi's leading paediatric hospital - Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital which was established in 1956 as a centre of excellence in paediatric care and research, has the dubious distinction of recording the maximum number of deaths every year.

Despite having the largest neo-natal wing with 84 beds in Delhi, the hospital alone recorded a shocking 10,785 deaths in the last five years. Sources said that due to lack of facilities, almost always, two to four babies are kept in a single incubator.



And that may explain the unbelievably high casualty figures of children.









Delhi's health minister AK Walia said, "Patient load in our hospitals is very high. Around 50 to 60 per cent of critical patients are from outside Delhi. A majority of terminally ill patients are referred here because there is a lack of tertiary care in neighbouring rural areas."



"There were major infrastructural problems in Kalawati Saran hospital. It is being renovated and expanded.



The paediatrics department is being upgraded in RML and Safdarjung hospitals too," explained Dr Jagdish Prasad, director- general of health services, Union ministry of health and family welfare.



Kalwati Saran Children's Hospital saw a total of 10,785 deaths in the 0-5 age group between 2008 and 2012





He said that the ministry's emphasis was on improving the infrastructure in small hospitals in the neighbouring areas because the doctors refer all the critical patients to Delhi.



Another leading government medical facility, Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar Hospital in Rohini, the biggest hospital in northwest Delhi catering to a population of around ten lakh, registered 8,552 mortalities in the last five years.



The multi-specialty hospital has 500 beds and boasts of super-speciality facilities. Having the required accreditations and certifications is no guarantee that a hospital is good enough to check the death rate of children.









The Delhi government's Chacha Nehru Bal Chikitsalaya, the first public hospital to be certified by the National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH), seems to be struggling to save its child patients.



The hospital accounted for 4,543 deaths in the last five years till September 2012. Paediatricians blamed the high number of deaths to inadequate medical facilities in government hospitals.

"There are very few ICU ventilators for babies in government hospitals against the actual requirement. Deaths of newborn and some older children, barring those suffering from severe malnutrition, can be prevented if proper healthcare facilities are provided," said Dr Dinesh Kapil, consultant neonatologist and paediatrician, Red Cross Hospital.







