Kota: Nine infants, one to four days old, died in a span of 24 hours at the city's JK Lon Hospital. While five of them died in the intervening night of Wednesday and Thursday, the other four died on Thursday.
Following the tragedy, the Kota district administration swung into action and deputed six more doctors and 10 nursing staff at the hospital for night duty to monitor the situation. The hospital had hit national headlines last December also after the deaths of an unusual number of infants.
However, hospital superintendent Dr Suresh Dulara claimed that the deaths were natural and not unusual or due to any severe infection. While three of the infants were brought dead during the night, three others had congenital issues.
One of them had an undeveloped head, another enlarged brain and a third had a condition called hydrocephalous or brain filled with water. Two other infants, who were referred, had septic shock and another suffered from abnormal growth, Dr Dulara said.
The deaths are not unusual and the paediatric medicine department at the hospital have treated them as normal, he claimed.
Kota divisional commissioner K C Meena and district collector Ujjawal Rathore visited the hospital in the evening and took stock of the situation. A meeting was later called by them which was attended Kota Medical College principal Dr Vijay Sardana, JK Lon Hospital head of the paediatrics depatrtment Dr B L Bairwa and superintendent Dr Dulara.
Other than deploying extra staff, medical authorities were directed to train new mothers in the ward on feeding and caring for newborns.
In December 2019, at least 91 infants died in a month at JK Lon Hospital, triggering national concern and political turmoil in the state.