Three-day-old twin male babies, born to a couple married for 18 years, died due to an unknown illness at the Old Government General Hospital on Thursday.
The deaths of the prematurely born babies in a gap of few hours enraged the parents and their relatives who alleged negligence on the part of the doctors and the staff.
A complaint was lodged against doctors at the Governorpet police station.
According to GGH in-charge superintendent Dr. S.B. Lal, B. Parvathy (39) was admitted to the Old GGH’s maternity ward at around 6 a.m. on November 21. Two hours later, doctors performed caesarean and two male babies weighing only two kg each were born. The three were shifted to the general ward later, Dr. Lal told The Hindu .
On Thursday morning, a nurse found that the body temperature of one baby was high and took the baby to the Sick Nursery Care (SNC) unit in the paediatrics wing. The baby was declared brought dead at 8 a.m. by the doctor at the SNC, Dr. Lal said.
Later at 1 p.m., the other baby was also found suffering from similar conditions and died.
Enraged by the alleged negligence of the doctors who did not even care to put the babies in incubators, their father B. Narayana Rao (42) lodged a complaint with police. A case under Section 174 of CrPc was booked. Post-mortem would be conducted on Friday morning, the police said.
Inquiry committee
An inquiry committee with three heads of the departments in the hospital was formed to probe the matter and the alleged negligence of the doctors and the staff. After the post-mortem, the exact cause of deaths would be known, Dr. Lal said.
Doctors said there were sufficient number of incubators. However, the babies were not put under incubation though it was advised in most cases of premature births.
Meanwhile, district Collector B. Lakshmikantam ordered a magisterial inquiry into the deaths. In a release, he said the inquiry would be headed by Joint Collector Vijaykrishnan. He asked the Joint Collector to submit a report and take necessary action.
