Death of infant rocks vaccination drive,parents allege negligence
Ashok Jaiswal (26) was working at his Rajouri Garden office as usual,when the urgent phone call from a neighbour came in.
Ashok Jaiswal (26) was working at his Rajouri Garden office as usual,when the urgent phone call from a neighbour came in. His two-month-old son had died,Jaiswal was informed.
The infant died allegedly after his third routine immunisation at Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s Sanjay Gupta Maternity Home in Trinagar on Wednesday. “His mother had just fed him and he was smiling when I left at 11.30 am. I feel numbed,” said Jaiswal,a day later,after cremating his son.
Even as the family registered a complaint on Wednesday alleging medical negligence,the Delhi government has decided against withdrawing samples of the vaccine for now.
“We have brought out last two weeks’ records ,where vaccines from this batch have been used. There has been no other incident of this nature,so we have decided to wait for the post-mortem report to see if there was any other cause for the death,” said an official.
Sources in the Immunisation department,meanwhile,confirmed that samples from the used vials and unused vaccines from the same batch will be sent for an examination to the Central Research Institute in Kausali next week .
Jaiswal’s 22-year-old wife Deiji said: “My son was fine,he did not have any other medical problem. Obviously,the dispensary authorities did something wrong.”
According to the child’s medical records available with Newsline,he weighed a healthy 2.4 kg at the time of birth. He had been administered the stipulated Tetanus shot at the time of birth at the Lady Hardinge Hospital and the routine BCG vaccine two weeks ago at Sanjay Gupta Maternity Home. On Wednesday,he was given the DPT,oral polio and Hepatitis B vaccines. Twenty other children were given the same vaccines at the dispensary from two vials on Wednesday.
According to the child’s mother,he started crying as soon as he was brought home after vaccination. Deiji gave him one fourth of a paracetamol tablet as advised by the dispensary.
Deiji said she started to panic around 3 pm and she returned to the dispensary. “One of the nurses told me that there was nothing to worry.”
Deiji then returned home. “By 4.30 pm he started going cold in my lap,and was unusually quiet. I alerted the neighbours,” she said. “We took him to the Saba Nursing Home in Inderlok.” Here the boy was declared ‘brought dead’.
After Jaiswal returned home,the family went to the MCD clinic demanding an answer. “We waited one and a half hours,but they shut their gates on us. Finally,we went and lodged a complaint with the police,” Jaiswal said.
A postmortem was conducted at the Babu Jagjivan Ram Hospital on Thursday morning and the report is yet to come in.
Meanwhile,the Delhi government,which is in charge of immunisation activities,and the MCD are already at loggerheads.
“The vaccines are procured by us,but their administration is done by MCD staff. If the vaccines are established as the cause of death,a proper inquiry should be conducted under the Municipal Health Officer,” said Kiran Walia,Health Minister.
The MCD has said this is largely a government matter. “The vaccines come from the state,the MCD staff only inject them. We have instituted our own inquiry under the Additional Director of Maternal Health,and the report has to be submitted by Monday,” said V K Monga,chairman of MCD’s Health Committee. The Delhi government has also constituted an enquiry as per protocol.
A senior police officer said: “The case is being investigated under Section 174 of CrPC. We have taken up the matter with the Medical Council of India and Delhi’s Director General (Health).”
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