Mumbai: Injured toddler turned away by 7 hospitals, dies after 5 days

Shahbasrsquos father Shaitu and his mother outside Sion hospital after he passed away on Monday PicNimesh DaveTurned away by seven hospitals in nine hours both government and private Shahbas Ali battled internal bleeding for five days in Sion hospitalrsquos paediatric intensive care unit PICU before breathing his last yesterday His father a daily wage worker from Virar blames the callous attitude of hospitals who refused to admit him either citing unavailability of beds or their inability to cough up a hefty admission depositAlso Read Toddlers life hangs in balance after being turned away by 7 Mumbai hospitalsShahbas AliThe state health department said it will conduct an inquiry into the incident and announced the setting up of a centralised system that assists patients in similar emergenciesShahbas had been fighting for his life in Sion hospital after a roadside food cart fell on him on Tuesday when he was playing near it The family tried their best to save him taking him from one hospital to another to no availldquoWe fought to save our child but we couldnrsquot He was critical and yet seven hospitals refused to admit him This delayed his treatment he had severe internal bleeding Even after finally admitting him in Sion hospital the doctors there didnrsquot take proper care of himrdquo said his father Shaitu a dailywage earner from VirarThe toddlerrsquos postmortem was conducted at Sion hospital yesterdayGovt to initiate inquiryThe state health department plans to initiate an inquiry especially against SevenHills and Holy Spirit hospitals for refusing to admit the child unless the family deposited Rs 5000060000 violating an SC ruleldquoIf there was no bed available then we canrsquot blame them But if inquiry reveals that despite availability they didnrsquot admit him it is a gross violation Also we will inquire why the private hospitals asked for moneyrdquo said Dr Satish Pawar director of Directorate of Health Services DHSThe rebuttalsHowever Sneha Joseph executive director of Holy Spirit Hospital said the child couldnrsquot be admitted because no ventilator was available ldquoThe child wasnrsquot even taken inside the hospital our doctor rushed to the ambulance and informed that no ventilator was available and suggested they go to another hospital The child was serious so we didnrsquot waste a single momentrdquo she saidOn the other hand Dr Raj Karva medical superintendent of SevenHills Hospital said if patientsrsquo ailments do not fall within the criteria to procure benefits of Rajiv Gandhi Yojana they are asked to pay cash and if they canrsquot they are referred to government hospitals ldquoIf they donrsquot fall in the Yojana criteria and canrsquot pay cash what can we dordquo he askedLack of fundsMumbai may be the financial capital of the country but when it comes to intensive care for children there are no proper facilities available in government as well as BMCrun hospitals JJ KEM Sion Wadia Cama Bhabha Cooper and Nair hospitals didnrsquot have a single bed vacant for the child to get admitted The state government is also aware of the situation and claims that lack of funds has stopped it from expanding servicesldquoTo create more PICUs we need more fundsrdquo said a senior officer of DHSRead Story Toddler falls in septic tank in Nalasopara diesFormer mayor Shubha Raul who is also a member of BMCrsquos public health committee expressed a similar view ldquoWe get patients from faroff areas and other states so the pressure is huge Hence itrsquos tough to get vacancies in PICUs To increase the number of PICUs more funds are neededrdquo she saidldquoThis boy came all the way from Virar as there are no proper primary health centres in tribal and rural areas Hence there is a need to strengthen the infrastructure in such areasrdquoNeed for a central systemTwo years back the public health committee had suggested creation of a centralised system to create a database that could be accessed from all centres However nothing has been done on that front yet Now the state health department is planning to form the system in major hospitals including JJ and maternity hospitals such as CamaRaul also raised the need to develop PICU ambulances along the lines of cardiac ambulances having the infrastructure to provide medical support to paediatric patients until they reach the hospitalIntercommunication a mustOfficials also talked about the need to improve communication between hospitals On Wednesday 2 am when Shahbasrsquos family had taken him to JJ hospital a doctor had told them that there was no vacancy there and didnrsquot even try to contact other hospitals to find out if they had any beds availableRaul said ldquoDoctors need to come forward to help patients in finding a bed They need to develop a means to communicate with each otherrdquo