New Delhi: The Centre will send a high-level team comprising experts from AIIMS, Jodhpur and health economists to the government-run JK Lon Hospital in Rajasthan’s Kota, where 100 infants died in December. The team will assess the infrastructural gaps and measures to be taken to prevent further deaths. A calculation of funds required will also be worked out.
“The high-level team being despatched by @MoHFW_INDIA including experts from AIIMS Jodhpur, Health Finance & Regional Director, Health Services Jaipur. It will reach #Kota tomorrow (Friday). In my letter too to @ashokgehlot51 ji, I’ve offered all possible assistance to prevent any further deaths (sic),” Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a tweet on Thursday.
Vardhan has also written to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, assuring him of all assistance, and urged him to initiate measures to stop the deaths of children at the JK Lon hospital.
According to Union Health Ministry officials, a preliminary probe has suggested that over 70 per cent of important equipment, including infusion pumps, warmers, oxymeters, nebulisers, meant for newborns, were not in a working condition at the JK Lon hospital and there was a paucity of staff in the paediatrics department.
A recent review had also revealed that the mortality rate at the hospital was 20.2 per cent in 2019, as against the 14.3 per cent in the preceding two years, an official said, adding that this meant one in five infants admitted to the hospital last year died from preventable causes.
The ministry was yet to receive a formal report from the state in this matter, the official said.
Meanwhile in a separate development Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot urged the Union Health Minister to visit the state-run hospital in Kota and see for himself the ‘best facilities’ provided there.
The BJP has been targeting the ruling Congress over the functioning of the hospital.
“I telephoned Central Health Minister @drharshvardhan ji and requested him to visit #Kota personally so that he can see the best of facilities and proper management by State Health Department and get himself apprised of the facts,” Gehlot tweeted.
He further wrote, “Harsh Vardhan ji is himself a doctor and if he visits the hospital in #Kota, it will also clarify the situation for people, who are giving reaction mischievously, knowingly, unknowingly and also innocently.”
PTI
