The parents of a three-day-old baby girl who died in a rodent attack at an Indore hospital discovered that four of their child’s fingers had been completely gnawed off when they unwrapped the body for funeral preparations Saturday.
The infant, from Rupapata village in Dhar district, was one of two newborns who died in a rodent attack in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of MY Hospital in Indore while undergoing treatment for congenital complications.
“It was only after we opened the wrapping to prepare for the funeral that we noticed the hand. Four of the baby’s fingers were completely bitten off,” said the father, Devram.
The baby girl was born on August 30 at Dhar district hospital and was subsequently referred to Yashwantrao Hospital in Indore due to her critical condition. Her father had left her at the hospital due to his wife Manju’s deteriorating health, trusting the medical facility to provide appropriate care. The hospital superintendent did not respond to the allegations.
The Jai Adivasi Yuva Shakti (JAYS), a tribal organisation, has demanded suspension of the hospital superintendent and other senior officials, along with registration of a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
JAYS national president Lokesh Mujalda said the body was handed over to the family in a plastic bag after postmortem Saturday evening. When the bag was removed before the funeral, the family was devastated and enraged to notice that four fingers on one hand of the baby had allegedly been gnawed by rats, he said.
Hospital officials have in the past denied that the rat attacks were the cause of death. Hospital management had initially claimed that the rats had only inflicted minor bites on the child’s finger.
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The true extent of the injuries only came to light when the first photographs of the deceased infant were released Saturday evening.
Sajid, whose daughter was also a victim of the rat attack in the same NICU ward, said his daughter died a painful death.
“We took our daughter to MY Hospital with complete faith. We hoped she would recover and come home healthy, but instead she suffered a very painful death,” he said.
Sajid’s daughter was born at Bagli government hospital with severe complications affecting her ability to defecate. After consulting three different hospitals without success, the family admitted her to MY Hospital.
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“The surgery seemed successful, and she was recovering. They even took her off the ventilator,” Sajid recounted. “But on September 2, doctors said she was having breathing problems and put her back on ventilator support. The next day, they informed us she had died.”
The girl’s family got to know about the rat attack through media reports.
“When we asked doctors if our baby had also been bitten by rats, they denied it and said our daughter’s death had nothing to do with the rat case,” Sajid said. “They lied to us completely.”
Dr. Arvind Ghangoria, Dean of the MGM Medical College that’s attached to the MY Hospital, did not respond to calls or messages.
