Deputy Chief Minister Alla Kali Krishna Srinivas (Nani) has called for immediate measures to curb infant mortalities at the Government General Hospital here. He has also underlined the need for keeping a vigil on private hospitals and nursing homes from where a large number of such cases come in critical stages.
Expressing concern over as many as 168 deaths in five months and 13 in the first 10 days of June, Mr. Nani, who holds the health portfolio, on Saturday warned of stringent action action if it was not checked within next two months.
Anantapur Urban MLA Anantha Venkatarami Reddy explained the shortcomings of the GGH functioning and measures needed for improving the situation.
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“I have been sent by Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy with a specific purpose of finding out the reasons/causes behind such a high rate of mortality. We are not going to punish anyone without making a through indepth study into this,” Mr. Nani said.
Corruption
Prevalence of high rate of corruption at lower rung in the GGH was a worrying factor, said the Health Minister and asked Hospital Superintendent A. Jagannath to curb the practice immediately, while listing out the reasons for infant mortalities that had come to his notice after visiting the Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU). The patients complained that a bribe of minimum ₹150 was extracted from each pregnant woman admitted to the hospital.
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Later talking to newsmen, the Minister said he found lack of facilities in most of the peripheral hospitals for delivery and no facility for neonatal care anywhere in the district except Anantapur. “It all takes a minimum of two hours of drive to bring a patient in critical condition, thus losing valuable time.
At the SNCU in GGH sufficient number of beds were not available and there was a lack of coordination between different wings in the hospital,” said the Minister.