Toddler critical after being turned away by seven Mumbai hospitals

Shabhas Alis family kept him alive through the night by manually pumping his resuscitator for seven hoursWhen oneandahalf yearold Shabhas Ali went out to play last evening a roadside food cart toppled over him crushing his chest and leading to internal bleeding The golden hour rule was killed as his father Shaitu was shunted between seven hospitals for want of a bed and inability to pay a hefty depositTo add to their anguish Shahbas Ali who has been unconscious through the night had to be kept on support of a manual resuscitator with his family physically pumping it for hours till he was finally admitted to Sion hospital on a second tryNo empty bedsFive major hospitals ndash Sion Nair KEM JJ and Wadia ndash didnrsquot have a single vacancy in the PICU to admit Shahbas the son of a daily wager from Virar Desperate they approached private hospitals Seven Hills and Holy Spirit but they refused to do anything without the deposit ranging between Rs 50000 and Rs 60000 being handed in It was only after we went back to Sion hospital that they managed to find an empty slot for the child at 630 am when another patient was discharged But the doctor has told me that his health has deteriorated due to the delay in getting the treatment rues Shaitu Shahbass fatherAlarmingly though even the tertiary and peripheral hospitals in the city mdash Cama Bhabha and Cooper mdash that were contacted by midday on phone to check for beds mdash came up empty St George and Shatabdi hospitals said they didnrsquot have a PICU for serious paediatric patientsThe letter Shaitu was made to write by JJ HospitalJJ the worstHowever the worst treatment was meted out to the family by the staff at JJ hospital that abdicated all responsibility by making the family sign off a lsquonegative consentrsquo letter and even threatening this reporter over recording the event Shahbasrsquos uncle Gul Mohammad Shah said ldquoAfter KEM and Nair when we took him to JJ Hospital they refused to admit himrdquoShaitu begged the authorities to admit the child He is lying unconscious since the accident and canrsquot even breathe If I canrsquot save my child I will commit suicide here he pleaded The hospital washed their hands off the matter with a letter in English that read At present as there is no PICU vacancy at JJ I am not ready to admit my child in the ward at my own risk and I will not hold the treating doctor and staff responsible to any untoward consequencesShabhas AliPrivate playHoly Spirit and Seven Hills refused to admit the child without a deposit ldquoWhen no government hospital agreed to admit him we went to private hospitals But they refused to admit him without the depositrdquo said MohammadBut Sneha Joseph executive director of Holy Spirit Hospital Bandra stated that the child couldnrsquot be admitted because there was no ventilatorDr Raj Karva medical superintendent of Seven Hills Hospital said if patientsrsquo ailments do not fall within the criteria to procure benefits under Rajiv Gandhi Yojana they are asked to pay in cash or referred to government hospitals