Nilofer Farhat Begum Sahiba was one of the last princesses of the Ottoman Empire. She was married to the second son of the last Nizam of Hyderabad in India. Several years passed after the marriage, but still Nilofer did not conceive a child. She found that there were no specialist doctors in Hyderabad whom she could consult. She had to travel to Europe to consult doctors, which she did. During this time, one of her maids died in Hyderabad during childbirth, again as a result of the lack of medical facilities. At that time, there was no specialized hospital for children and mothers in Hyderabad. Childbirth took place mostly at home and even simple complications could prove fatal for mother or child. Nilofer made known to her father-in-law the problems arising due to this lack of medical facilities and as a result, a speciality hospital for women and children was built in the Red Hills area of the city. Indeed, the hospital was named Nilofer Hospital in her honour and she was named its patron, a position she retained as long as she lived in Hyderabad. Even today, the hospital remains a well-known one and is a prominent landmark of the Red Hills neighbourhood.
Nilofer Hospital is a maternity and children’s hospital. Trained in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Pediatrics, it is one of the largest Hospitals of its kind in Asia. But today one of the largest hospitals in Asia is in very pathetic state.
According to a report, on an average, 350 kids die at the hospital every month due to lack of staff and inadequate infrastructure. In the last seven months, as many as 2,122 children died in the hospital. In 2011, 3,447 infants breathed their last. The previous year, the number stood at 4,296.
The hospital can accommodate only 500 patients, while 1,200 in-patients are admitted in the hospital at a time, hence each bed is shared by two to three children. Unusable ventilators, incubators, scarcity of antibiotics, lack of life-saving drugs and inadequate nursing staff are the reasons for infant deaths.
A major chunk of the patients who come to the hospital for treatment are poor and hail from rural areas. They don’t afford to buy the medicines from medical stores at market cost, when they are not provided with them by the hospital, due to shortage.