Pradhan seeks Nadda's intervention on infant deaths in Odisha

Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on Thursday urged his cabinet colleague and Health Minister J.P. Nadda to send an expert team to a Cuttack hospital, where 33 infants have died in the last seven days.

"Kindly constitute an expert team to visit the hospital and ascertain the facts relating to abnormal number of deaths of infants within such a short span of time," Pradhan, who hails from Odisha, said in a letter to Nadda.

The deaths were reported from Sardar Vallab Bhai Patel Post Graduate Institute of Paediatrics.

The minister said the team may also suggest steps to be taken for improving infrastructure and other facilities for the benefit of improving health care facility in the hospital in general and for infant care in particular.

He that parents have attributed such deaths to negligence of doctors and other hospital staffs in the health institution known as 'Sishu Bhawan'.

"Further, the medical staffs and doctors have also alleged that the number of ICUs and other medical facilities in Sishu Bhawan are woefully insufficient to carter to growing needs of medical care for infants," said Pradhan.

Odisha Health Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak said the state government was taking steps to improve the health facilities in Sishu Bhawan.

"About 89 doctors and 173 staff nurses have been engaged for 416 beds in the paediatrics hospital. Besides, additional six paediatrics specialists and equal number of sisters have been engaged from today," he said.