The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Hospital’s apathy blamed for child’s death

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Saturday, Aug 18, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Hospital’s apathy blamed for child’s death

Sahana Charan

Doctors insist Pooja was brought dead to the hospital
In 2006, 3,150 GE cases were reported at the hospital

Bangalore: When seven-year-old Pooja was taken to the Epidemic Diseases Hospital on Thursday little did her parents know that the alleged apathy of the doctors there would lead to the child’s death.

Even though Pooja was taken to the hospital in the morning, there was reportedly no doctor to attend to her till the early afternoon. Even when the doctor came, no attempt was made to examine her and she was only put on intravenous fluids, Pooja’s family members charged.

“Even though they are supposed to provide the patients medicines, the hospital staff asked us to purchase the medicine from a store outside,” Pooja’s mother Devi said.

When The Hindu team visited the hospital here on Friday, empty corridors and examination rooms greeted them, with not many nursing staff or doctors in sight.

Two medical interns were sitting in the duty doctor’s room to examine patients while the duty doctor was lying on a bed in a chamber inside.

The hospital authorities refused to divulge any information about the girl’s illness, saying that not a single patient from Nellurpuram slum had been admitted or treated in the out-patient department of the hospital.

Medical Superintendent M.N. Gangadharaiah and the duty doctor kept insisting that Pooja was brought dead to the hospital only on Friday morning even though a section of the media had reported the death on Thursday. If the death occurred on Friday (as the hospital claims) how did it get reported in the media one day before?

Despite claims by the Department of Health and Family Welfare that the number of gastroenteritis cases has come down in the last few years, the numbers tell a different story.

In 2005, 3,044 cases of gastroenteritis were reported at the Epidemic Disease Hospital while in 2006, the number was 3,150. This year too, quite a few cases have been reported from L.R. Nagar slum, Maruthiseva Nagar, Koramangala, Jagadishnagar and Shivajinagar areas in the city. Hospital authorities refused to divulge the number of cases reported this year.

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