A four-day-old infant died due to respiratory issues after she was made to run back and forth between hospital wings for more than three hours on Wednesday (June 19) in Uttar Pradesh.
As the baby started showing breathing problems, her panicked parents took her to a government hospital in Bareilly in Western Uttar Pradesh.
Not knowing that they were entering the male wing, the worried parents asked a doctor for help but the presiding doctor refused to admit the baby girl. He asked the parents to take her to the women's wing. When the parents took Urvashi there, no beds were available and the parents were told to take her back to the men's wing.
"We were made to run around for over three hours because they simply refused to admit her. Finally, we decided to take her back home, but she died on the hospital stairs," Kusma Devi, the girl's grandmother, told NDTV.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath ordered the suspension of the doctor-in-charge of the male wing. He tweeted on Wednesday night, "I have ordered the suspension of CMS of Male Hospital Bareilly on the negligence of duty and have ordered for departmental proceedings against CMS of Women Hospital. Any insensitivity by Govt. officials will not be tolerated in #NewUP."
He added, "The action was taken after a critically sick child was brought to Male Hospital, where sufficient paediatricians were available, but instead of stabilising the child and giving due treatment, he turned family away to Women Hospital. CMS of Women Hospital referred child back."
Many doctors from the female wing said that the doctors refer all patients to the female ward of the hospital.
"We told the family to go back to the men's wing. The staff at the men's wing just blindly refer everyone here. But all our equipment like warmers has been returned to the government. We have four warmers and we had eight kids on them already, If beds were empty, we would have admitted the child," Dr Alka Sharma of the hospital said.
The suspended doctor, Kamlendra Swaroop Gupta, said, "The baby was taken to the OPD (outpatient department) by the parents. From there, she was referred to the SNCU (specialised child care unit) at the women's wing. But they sent the family away. If the baby had reached the emergency, we would have treated her. When the family finally reached the emergency, we started the procedure to admit her."
