'Lack of oxygen' claims 49 lives in UP's Farrukhabad

AGRA/ LUCKNOW: Forty-nine infants died in a month at Farrukhabad’s Ram Manohar Lohia government hospital, most of them due to “perinatal asphyxia”, a condition in which the child cannot breathe properly, officials said on Monday. In a virtual replay of the tragedy in Gorakhpur, where 30 children died in two days at a state-run hospital last month, parents of many of the children in Farrukhabad told officials that there was a delay in providing oxygen and medicines. Soon after the matter came to light, the state government transferred the district magistrate (DM), the chief medical officer (CMO) and the chief medical superintendent (CMS)Principal health and family welfare secretary Prashant Trivedi said a high-level committee will look into the children deaths at the sick newborn care unit (SNCU), clarifying that the facts had been misinterpreted and the deaths were not linked to the Gorakhpur tragedy in any way.According to local officials, the matter came to light after DM Ravindra Kumar ordered a probe on August 30 after, according to some claims, he visited the hospital and interacted with parents of the victims.The hospital recorded 49 deaths — 30 in the neonatal ICU and 19 during delivery — between July 20 and August 21, an official spokesperson said in Lucknow. He added that 468 deliveries took place in the women’s wing of the hospital during the period. Of these, 19 were still births.The DM asked the CMO and the CMS to submit a detailed cause-wise report on the deaths. Finding the report incomplete, the DM deputed the city magistrate to probe the matter. Farrukhabad SP Daya Nand Misra told TOI, “On Sunday evening, based on a written complaint filed by magistrate Jainendra Kumar Jain in Nagar Kotwali police station regarding the deaths of children, we lodged an FIR against CMO Uma Kant Pandey, CMS B P Pushkar and a few doctors of RML hospital.The accused have been booked under IPC sections 176 (omission to give notice or information to public servant by person legally bound to give it), 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 304 (punishment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder).”