The disclosure was made by Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel in a written reply in the Assembly on the deaths of infants at the hospital. Patel also holds health and finance portfolios.
Gandhinagar: Over 1,018 children died at the Adani Foundation-run G K General Hospital in Bhuj town of Kutch district during the last five years, the Gujarat government told the legislative assembly on Wednesday.
GK General Hospital is the first of the state government’s public-private partnership initiatives in the health sector.
The disclosure was made by Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel in a written reply in the Assembly on the deaths of infants at the hospital. Patel also holds health and finance portfolios.
The state government had in May 2018 set up an inquiry into the hospital’s functioning following uproar over deaths of 111 infants there in five months.
As per the figures shared by Patel, 188 children had died in 2014-15, 187 in 2015-16, 208 in 2016-17, 276 in 2017-18 and 159 in 2018-19 (till now.)
Patel said the committee concluded that deaths occurred due to serious complications among premature babies and infectious diseases, respiratory complications, birth asphyxia and sepsis among infants, either referred to the hospital or born there.
He, however, claimed treatment administered by the hospital was according to “set protocols and standard guidelines.”
Death of children in hospitals has become routine for many state and private run hospitals in India.
Just months after the GK General Hospital tragedies, 18 infants had died at Ahmedabad’s Civil Hospital, Asia’s biggest government hospital, in 48 hours. “Five-six children die here every day,” H.H. Prabhakar, Civil Hospital, medical superintendent, had said during the controversy.
As many as 164 infants died in the first four months of last year at the government-run KD Children’s Hospital in Rajkot, the hometown of Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani.
In August 2017, nearly 70 children died at BRD Medical College and Hospital in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur. Although many alleged that the children had died after oxygen supply at the hospital was disrupted because of lack of payment, the Uttar Pradesh government had dismissed this claim.
The same month, 52 children died at the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College Hospital in Jamshedpur. The hospital superintendent blamed malnutrition for the deaths.
Inputs from IANS