Cuttack Sishu Bhawan death toll rises to 27

BHUBANESWAR: Twenty seven children have died over the last five days at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Post Graduate Institute of Paediatrics, known as Sishu Bhawan, in Cuttack, prompting several parents to move their sick children to private hospitals.

Naveen Patnaik’s Biju Janata Dal, under attack from the opposition, has tasked a committee, led by director medical education and training, to submit a report within 10 days.

This comes after the Odisha Human Rights Commission (OHRC) on Monday asked the health secretary and director of National Rural Health Mission to submit a report in three weeks on the unusually high number of deaths of newborns.

State health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak held an urgent meeting on Tuesday.

Nayak had earlier said the preliminary findings showed the infants were mostly born premature and with low birth weight and had died of either pneumonia or septicemia.

The issue has rocked the ongoing monsoon session of the assembly.

Opposition BJP and Congress leaders have visited the Cuttack hospital.

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) president Prasad Harichandan listed out a number shortcomings at the Sishu Bhawan, including no oxygen gas plant, a broken CT scan machine, staff strength far below what is prescribed by the Medical Council of India and a pathology laboratory that doesn’t work after evening.

A BJP team, led by MLA Basant Panda, demanded the resignation of the health secretary after visiting the hospital.