Page 3 - JAN2020E2

Editor’s Note

No corrective measures amid

politics over newborn deaths

First it was Uttar Pradesh where 63 children suffering storm. In a tweet, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi
from acute encephalitis syndrome died when the sup- Adityanath accused the Congress chief of insensitivity.
plier allegedly due to non-payment, suddenly cut oxy- The tweet in Hindi read, “the deaths of 100 children at
gen supply. Then it was Bihar in 2019 where acute en- a Kota hospital is very sad. It is sad that Congress chief
cephalitis syndrome outbreak killed over 150 children. Sonia Gandhi and general secretary Priyanka Gandhi
And now it is Rajasthan’s Kota hospital where over 100 Vadra, despite being women, could not comprehend”.
children have died again allegedly due to medical negli- Bahujan Samaj Party chief and former Chief Minister
gence. Such incidents in a welfare State put us to shame. Mayawati, too, in a series of tweets in Hindi, slammed
The National Commission for Protection of Child Priyanka Gandhi Vadra. Her tweets read: “It is very sad
Rights (NCPCR) has served a show cause notice to the that the Congress General Secretary is keeping mum on
State government. The NCPCR Chairperson, Priyank the deaths of 100 children in the Kota hospital. It would
Kanoongo commented, “pigs were found roaming in- have been better if like Uttar Pradesh, she had met the
side the campus of the hospital, while ailing children mothers of the children who have died in the hospital,
were at the mercy of extreme weather conditions”. due to the apathy of the government of her party in the
There are allegations that crucial medical equipment state.
including 13 out of 19 ventilators were not in working If the Congress General Secretary does not go and
order while there was shortage of pediatricians and meet the Kota families who are affected by the tragedy,
nurses in the hospital. then her outreach towards victims in Uttar Pradesh
Newborns optimally should have a body tempera- would be considered political opportunism, from which
ture of 36.5 degrees Celsius. Hence, the infants were the public of Uttar Pradesh is advised to stay alert.” Con-
kept on warmers, which keeps their body temperature gress, on its part instead of accepting the facts, blamed
stable, in the hospital. However, there was a shortage of the previous BJP government for the affairs at the hos-
functioning warmers in the hospital due to which the pital. Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot, facing crit-
body temperature of infants continued to decline. icism from the opposition, in a series of tweets assured
Unfortunately a political blame game has begun but that his government is sensitive to the deaths of sick
as usual it will lead nowhere. A three-member visiting infants at the JK Lone Hospital. It is time to take correc-
BJP parliamentary delegation flagged administrative tive measure than playing politics on an avoidable trag-
laxity, crumbling infrastructure, unhygienic surround- edy of such a grave magnitude.
ings and medical apathy.
The death of children in Kota has set off a political CHARANJIT AHUJA

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Add.indd 5 25/09/18 4:53 PM