In Assam hospital,42 children dead in 2 months

As many as 42 children aged between one and 12 have died in Assams Karimganj district after being admitted to the district hospital there in a span of two months.

Confirming this,Karimganj Deputy Commissioner Jiten Borgoyari said these 42 deaths occurred in December and January,and that most of the cases were referral cases from the primary health centres of the district. The civil hospital in Karimganj town was the only referral hospital for a population of 12.5 lakh,he added.

The state UNICEF office has already described the deaths as alarming,with Jeero Master,state representative for Assam,saying a team of UNICEF experts would be dispatched to Karimganj in the next few days.

It is definitely a matter of concern. Luckily the victims are not neo-natal cases or infants. But something must be wrong somewhere in the district,which even otherwise figures at the bottom of the human development chart among all the districts of the state, Master said.

State Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sharma,who is away in Manipur as Congress party in-charge for the assembly elections,said he had already called for a detailed report on the deaths. We have to find out two things; the reasons of death and whether the mortality rate in the 1-12 age group was abnormally high in comparison to earlier months, Sharma told The Indian Express over the telephone.

Deputy Commissioner Borgoyari,however,said preliminary reports had indicated that most of these 42 children were referred to the Karimganj Civil Hospital only after their condition had worsened. Almost each child was sent to the civil hospital only when their condition had turned worse. Preliminary reports said most were cases of diarrhea,malnutrition and anaemia, he said. An Additional Deputy Commissioner has been already asked to conduct an inquiry.

Sharma,who said he would get more details only after his return to the state,however,admitted that the health infrastructure in Karimganj was bad in terms of qualified doctors and specialists. The district civil hospital does not have a pediatrician. Several PHCs are running with ayurvedic doctors because we do not have enough MBBS doctors. But only a detailed report can ascertain whether the mortality rate is normal or abnormally high, he said.

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That all is not well with the only civil hospital in Karimganj a district that shares a porous boundary with Bangladesh and has acute shortage of safe drinking water can be also gauged from the fact that while the hospital requires 50 doctors,it is currently running with only 18. Till the other day it did not have an anesthetic, admitted Sharma.

Assam otherwise has the fourth highest infant mortality rate in the country with the latest SRS bulletin of the Registrar-General of India putting it at 61 per 1,000 live births against the national average of 50. In rural Assam,the IMR is as high as 64.