‘146 kids died in two Jodhpur hospitals in December'

JODHPUR: Amid the chaos over the deaths of infants at Kota’s J K Lon Hospital, disturbing figures of similar deaths have emerged from Jodhpur.
A joint report on infant deaths at Umaid Hospital and MDM Hospital in Jodhpur, prepared by the hospitals’ governing organisation, states that a total of 146 deaths (of children) were recorded at the Neo Natal Care and Paediatric ICUs in December.
As per figures obtained from S N Medical College, the governing organisation, a total of 4,689 children were admitted to the two hospitals in December. Of these, 3,002 were infants. During treatment, 146 children, including 102 infants, died.
SN Medical College principal S S Rathore said the child mortality rate came to 3%, which was in keeping with international infant mortality rates.
As per the figures, 47,815 children had been admitted to the hospital in 2019, of which 754 children died, which is 1.57%. But, of these, 5,634 children were admitted to the Neo NICU and ICU in serious condition and all 754 deaths were reported in the NICU and ICU.
Rathore said the paediatric care units for critical patients had been winning first prize for the past 2 years in succession and this was because “we are doing the best”.
He added that the hospital here has to bear the load of patients from entire western Rajasthan and children are also referred to this hospital from hospitals like AIIMS.
While calculating the mortality rate, the hospital administration calculated it factoring in patients admitted to the paediatric wards while the deaths occurred in the NICU and ICU.
Though Rathore denied any shortage of resources to deal with the “pressure”, many senior doctors from the hospital’s paediatric department have been running their own private hospitals and skipping hospital duties. Recently notices had been served on these doctors, including those who had medical shops at their residences, but the situation has not shown any improvement and the absence of senior doctors from the OPD remains a matter of concern.