Madras High Court seeks reply on plea seeking facilities to reduce infant mortality rate in south TN

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Tuesday sought response from the State government on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) that was filed seeking a series of directions to reduce the infant mortality rate in Madurai and other southern districts of Tamil Nadu.

The litigant, A Veronica Mary of Madurai, submitted that nearly 4,432 surgeries were performed in the Pediatric Surgery Unit at the Government Rajaji Hospital (GRH) in Madurai between 2018 and October 2021. "Out of these, 261 children died without proper treatment," she claimed, adding that it is 50% higher than the infant mortality rate recorded in the Institute of Child Health (ICH) at Chennai. This is due to lack of facilities in the Pediatric Surgery Unit in GRH, she alleged and sought a direction to construct an 'Institute of Child Health and Hospital for Children' at GRH and to provide necessary infrastructure, equipment and staff for the pediatric surgery unit of the hospital.

She further sought a direction to the government to constitute a 'State Level Medical Committee' to study and report about the child deaths in the GRH unit. When the case was heard by a Bench comprising Justices R Mahadevan and J Sathya Narayana Prasad on Tuesday, the government counsel submitted that already a proposal is pending in this regard. Hearing this, the judges directed the authorities concerned to file a response, along with a time bound plan, and adjourned the case for two weeks.