Nine-month-old girl loses finger at Gurugram daycare

Parents accuse negligent and ill-trained staff for incident; child to undergo another surgery soon

A nine-month-old girl’s finger had to be amputated after it was badly crushed due to the alleged negligence of the staff of a daycare centre in Gurugram.

The incident occurred on May 19.

The girl’s father, Nikhil Rastogi, recalled that less than 30 minutes after he and his wife Bhawna had dropped the child off at the Intellitots Daycare Centre in Sector 44 around 10 a.m., they got a call saying that their daughter’s finger was cut.

“When we reached the centre, we found her bleeding and in pain. Her left hand ring finger was crushed. We rushed her to a hospital where doctors performed a surgery and amputated the finger,” said Mr. Rastogi, a marketing head with a private bank.

The child was discharged on Monday, but will have to undergo another surgery on Thursday.

Her entire hand will be in plaster for almost six weeks.

‘Going through hell’

Sharing their traumatic experience on social media, Ms. Rastogi, a software engineer, wrote: “As I write this post, my baby lies besides me with her left arm immobilised and her left hand ring finger amputated as the Intellitots maid apparently shut the door on my daughter while changing the diaper. No one can imagine what it was to see her screaming and all in blood with her finger piece separated.... right now we are going through hell!! (sic)”.

She went on to add that the incident was a “clear case of criminal negligence and violation of basic infrastructure and training required for running early childhood care centre”.

Mr. Rastogi claimed that when he demanded to see the CCTV footage of the incident, the daycare management told them that the cameras malfunctioned at the time of the incident. “We have been paying through our nose for facilities such as CCTVs at the centre, but we failed to get the footage when we needed it most. The maids handling the kids are not trained and the door and other equipment are not child-friendly,” said Mr. Rastogi, adding that he was going to file a police complaint in the matter.

‘Investigating incident’

Pooja, one of the two directors of the centre, in a press statement said: “We deeply regret the unfortunate accident... we are investigating the incident and are committed to taking corrective measures”.

In a similar incident last May, a three-year-old girl at the Cherub Angles day care centre had lost her thumb after another kid shut the door on her. An FIR was lodged in the matter.