A day after the shocking account of crib deaths at the state's only referral hospital for children came to light, the government announced an upgrade for it.
BC Roy Memorial Hospital ( BCRMHC) will finally be equipped with a sick neonatal care unit (SNCU) - a highly specialized unit designed and equipped to handle critically ill newborns. Since the most common problems among newborns are respiratory diseases, asphyxia, hypothermia, sepsis and meningitis, an SNCU has a controlled temperature and a central oxygen supply system.
"A 40-bed SNCU will come up in the hospital which we are trying to open by July-end," said health secretary M N Roy, who visited the hospital on Friday morning with director of medical education, Dr Soumendra Nath Banerjee. Together they chalked out plans to improve facilities at the hospital.
The move came a day after it was found that 17 babies had died at the hospital in 36 hours. The figure of crib deaths rose to 21 with four more babies dying
by Thursday midnight. Even as the hospital had termed around four deaths a day as "normal", no death was reported on Friday.
Despite the inquiry committee giving the hospital a clean chit on Friday, more doctors were put in service and many attended 'on call' duty. Parents of patients had been complaining of misbehaviour and negligence by doctors and nurses. But on Friday, there was a marked change in the latter's behaviour.
"The in-charge of the ward where my 5-year-old nephew is admitted misbehaves with patients every day. The other day, she told us that as we live in a slum, we couldn't expect good behaviour. Today she turned all concerned and caring. I am sure that once this controversy dies down, it'll be all back to square one," said Shankar Roy of Muraripukur.
Abhijit Sarkar, a 2-year-old patient's father, had a similar story to tell. "On Friday, there were three persons - a doctor, a nurse and an ayah - looking after my son. On other days, they keep complaining about a staff crisis. How did the staff strength increase all of a sudden? If my son needs immediate attention on other days, the nurses shout at us and ask us to wait. Today they have gone all sweet," said Sarkar.
Even doctors at the OPD took precautions lest there was complaint of misbehaviour and negligence. "On other days, doctors do not even check the babies properly and shoo us away within minutes even as we spend hours standing in the queue. Today they gave each of us so much time, patiently explaining every minor detail. I was taken aback by this sudden change of heart," said Aseema Bibi of Rajarhat at the OPD.
The number of patients at the OPD however declined drastically on Friday. On an average, the hospital gets around 1,500 patients in the OPD daily. On Friday, the number was less than 50% of that.
Parents of some patients admitted to the hospital also wanted to shift them to other hospitals.
Among them was Nasima Bibi of Howrah's Amta. "My 7-day-old nephew was admitted here with high fever four days back. But there has been no improvement. We are thinking of shifting him elsewhere," she said.
It will take more than mere promises, it seems, to regain the confidence of people.
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