Fayaz Bukhari
Srinagar, Aug 6: The mortality rate of the children admitted to Srinagar’s G B Pant Paediatric Hospital has increased this year even after Government intervened last year by upgrading the infrastructure and increasing the staff of the hospital for better healthcare.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah is personally monitoring the functioning of the hospital since last year following furore over the increased mortality rate among children admitted to the hospital.
Chief Minister even last week reviewed the functioning and facilities added to the Hospital since the last year during inauguration of State of Art Medical Testing Gadget, Bact Alert.
Bact Alert, is a comprehensive machine that undertakes culturing of blood sample within 24 to 36 hours isolating the bacteria and its specie. The gadget has the capacity of handling as many as 240 samples at a time.
Sources said that the Medical Superintendent of the Hospital, Dr. Muneer Masoodi gave status of treatment being provided to the infants in the Hospital and upgrading of the infra-structure to the Chief Minister since last year during his visit but he didn’t mention the increase in the mortality rate.
The Government since last year has increased the infrastructure of the Hospital and increased its staff for better patient care. “The number of ventilators has gone up to 11 from 5 and baby warmers from 30 to 60. Around Rs 3 crore has been spent on upgrading the infrastructure including purchase of latest equipment for blood bank and laboratory”, the hospital records reveal.
The Hospital records further suggest that strength of doctors has been increased from 58 to 70, Nurses from 90 to 120, Nursing Orderlies from 80 to 110 and security staff from 18 to 30.
The 15 bedded Paediatric Intensive Care Unit was also made functional in the Hospital for specialised treatment and medicare in the Hospital.
According to records of the Hospital despite strengthening the para-medical and medical staff and upgrading infrastructure, the death rate among children admitted to G B Pant Hospital for three-month period from April to June this year has risen to 5.44 per cent compared to 3.5 per cent for the same period last year.
The number of children admitted to G B Pant Hospital for three-month period from April to June this year is 4937 while it was 7645 for the same period. And during the same period 269 children died. Although number of the deaths is same but death percentage has gone up.
In April, May and June this year the number of deaths reported at the Hospital is 100, 76 and 93 which is 5.15 per cent, 5.13 per cent and 6.13 per cent while last year the number of deaths reported in April, May and June was 81, 113 and 75 which is 2.68 per cent, 4.16 percent and 3.92 per cent respectively.
The Hospital data shows that in year 2011-12 the number of patients who were examined at the Outpatient’s Department of the Hospital was 2, 97, 817 while in 2012-2013 it was 2, 44, 835 and those admitted was 32, 103 and 22, 755 respectively.
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