Devram and his wife, Manju, say they anxiously waited several days for news about their infant daughter, who had been admitted to the neonatal ICU of the Maharaja Yeshwantrao (MY) Hospital in Indore with serious congenital complications. However, no information came from the hospital, they claimed, and they were told by local tribal activists that the infant had been bitten by a rat and died days later.
Their daughter was among two infants bitten by rats at the premier Indore hospital’s NICU earlier this week. Both died, one on Tuesday and the other on Wednesday.
Devram and Manju, from Sardarpur in Madhya Pradesh’s Dhar district, staged a protest outside MGM Medical College, which is attached to the hospital, along with activists from the Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS) group. The parents said the hospital had promised to contact them once their newborn daughter’s condition improved after surgery.
“When I left the hospital, my daughter was in good condition. She was not weak,” Manju said, adding, “We were told she needed surgery and would get better. The hospital administration said they would call us, but we heard nothing… We thought that after the surgery, I would finally have my daughter in my arms.”
Devraj said, “We were assured by the hospital that they would call us. There is a gate pass that is made for each visitor, without which you can’t enter, so we waited for the call. We never abandoned our daughter.”
The couple’s ordeal began when their newborn was admitted to the neonatal ICU with serious complications that were present from birth.
“We waited outside the ICU for two days, but were neither allowed to see her nor meet the doctor,” Devram claimed. “After this, due to a lack of money, we returned to the village. We recently got the news that our daughter had died due to a rat bite. When I had left the hospital, my daughter was in good condition. We were told that she would be operated on and that she would get better,” he said.
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MGM Medical College dean Dr Arvind Ghangoria acknowledged the hospital’s failures while rejecting that the cause of death was the rat bite. “The girl’s death is not due to the rat bite. She was bitten by a rat, and strict action was taken against all officials,” he said, adding, “The parents of the deceased were not found at the time of death, so we had to inform the police as per procedure along with the other medical staff, that the parents of the child were not present at the time of death.”
The hospital has suspended two nursing officers and removed a nursing superintendent following the rat bites on two infants. Showcause notices have also been issued to the nursing officer in charge and the head of pediatric surgery.
