Gujarat: At least nine infants since Friday have died in the ICU of Ahmedabad's Asarwa civil hospital within a span of 24-hour.
Denying any systemic failure as reason for the deaths, State health commissioner Jayanthi Ravi confirmed the nine deaths.
"Of the nine infants, one was born premature, one was underweight, and another was born with a heart ailment," Ravi said.
Stressing there was no shortage of medicines or equipment at the hospital, Ravi said they were assessing the situation and have sought a report from hospital authorities.
She also said some of the infants who died were born in other hospitals, but were later referred to the civil hospital as many private doctors were travelling because of the Diwali holidays.
M M Prabhakar, superintendent Civil Hospital, said five of the infants were brought from other hospitals. "Their conditions were extremely bad when they were brought here. The other babies were of extreme low birth weight of 1 kg.
They suffered a lot of complications, including severe infection. Such cases are extremely difficult to treat," Prabhakar noted.
The state government issued a press statement late on Saturday, saying five of the infants were referred from Lunavada, Surendranagar, Mansa, Viramgam and Himmatnagar, with critical conditions such as severe birth asphyxia, extreme pre-term with birth weight as low as 1.1kg (the normal birth weight is 2.5kg), hyaline membrane disease and septicemia. Three babies born at the hospital had severe birth asphyxia and one had meconium aspiration syndrome.
The statement added that all the doctors and nurses were on duty in the neonatal intensive care unit of the hospital. This unit, with around 100 beds, is the ultimate referral centre in the state.
As a precautionary measure to avoid any untoward event, police were deployed in large numbers at the hospital.
(With DNA inputs)
