With a lack of clarity on the compensation they will get, and the post-mortem report yet to be handed over to them, parents of three-month-old Prince Rajbhar, who died after being injured in a fire at KEM Hospital, are yet to claim his body.
“Our relatives are on their way to Mumbai. They will reach on Monday. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is yet to give us the compensation and the doctors have not handed over the final post-mortem report. If everything is done by then, we will carry out the last rites on Monday,” the baby’s father, Pannelal Rajbhar, said.
Prince was admitted to the BMC-run KEM Hospital for treatment of a heart defect. He was severely injured when an ECG cable attached to a multi-parameter monitor caught fire in the paediatric intensive care unit on November 7. He died on November 22 due to septicaemic shock following deep to superficial thermal burns.
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The BMC had first agreed to pay ₹5 lakh to the parents. The amount was later increased to ₹10 lakh, but the parents have not yet received the cheque.
Prince was suffering from atrial septal defect (ASD), which signifies a hole in the wall between the heart’s upper chambers. He was also suffering from stridor, a condition that causes obstruction of airways leading to breathing difficulty.
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A senior heart surgeon attached to a private hospital said Prince’s heart defect is quite common. “ASD is very much treatable now. But its presence with stridor makes it a high-risk case,” the doctor said. Prince also had pneumonia, which made his condition slightly severe. However, doctors said the infection is common in babies with such heart defects.
While civic authorities have said Prince was brought to the hospital in a very serious condition, his parents say the burns worsened it. “Our child was fine. We came to the hospital for treatment. Instead, the burns led to the amputation of my child’s hand. How can such a small baby survive all of this?” Mr. Rajbhar asked.