Mancherial, April 15: In a shocking incident, a four-day-old infant was burnt to death in an incubator at a private hospital in Mancherial, 160 km from Adilabad in the early hours today.
A short-circuit is suspected to have sparked the fire, which damaged coolers, refrigerators and other equipment including the incubator in the ward, hospital authorities and police said.
Luckily, five infants who had been in the incubators were discharged just a day before the tragedy took place.
The baby boy was born to Rajitha, a woman from Vaddera colony in Mancherial, at a hospital in Chennur Sunday.
Doctors there advised the infant to be shifted to another hospital as he was underweight and did not cry after birth.
Rajitha’s mother, Mallamma alias Sheeba, took the infant to Chaitanya Children’s Hospital at Mancherial town the same day. He was kept in the incubator and was being treated. Rajitha, who had undergone a caesarean section, did not go with the child. Mallamma was attending to the infant and slept outside the ward last night. ‘‘At about 1.30 a.m I woke up to a loud noise from inside the ward. A compounder was inside and he rushed out as the fire spread. I didn’t have the slightest idea of what happened,’’ a dazed Mallamma told Express. Power supply to the incubator room went out immediately and none dared enter the room. The compounder called up Dr Suresh Kumar, owner of the hospital, who told him to switch off the main power supply. It was nearly 20 minutes later when the fire died down that staff could enter the room.
They found the entire room gutted. The infant was burnt to death in the incubator.
‘‘The tubelights in the incubators had broken and pieces of glass were strewn on the infant’s body,’’ an eyewitness said.
Hospital authorities did not inform the police immediately. They handed over the charred infant’s body to its father John who performed the final rites. ‘‘On a complaint by John, police registered a case under Section 304-A (negligent act leading to death) against Suresh Kumar and the case is under investigation,’’ Mancherial sub-inspector Raghupathi said.
The police have decided to exhume the body of the infant to send it for a post mortem examination. Contacted by Express, Suresh Kumar said: ‘‘It was an unfortunate incident.’’ This is the second incident in recent years of infant dying in an incubator. In January 2006, an infant died in a similar mishap at Niloufer Hospital in Hyderabad.
A short circuit caused a fire in the neo-natal ward in which five kids were kept in incubator. Four were rescued.
–Agencies