Tags:
Journalism of Courage
BARWALA (PANCHKULA), June 14: When Gurneet Kaur fondly dressed up her baby in order to take him to the dispensary for vaccination, she didn’t know she was doing it for the last time. The ten-month-old baby died minutes after the compounder at the dispensary administered the wrong medicine. Krishan Kumar alias Rajat, fondly called Raju was born ten months ago to Nachhatar Singh and Gurneet Kaur – their first baby.
"It was pouring hard on June 11. Word came around in the morning that those who wanted to immunise their children should go to the dispensary which had opened that day after a gap of three days,”narrated Nachhatar Singh, father of the dead baby. Gurneet Kaur was the first to reach the spot, along with two others who were also there to get their infants vaccinated against polio.
"The lady present on the spot gave the baby an injection. It was then that the man in charge gave some oral medicine to the baby. Within seconds Raju’s body started quivering. In a minute, he started frothing at the mouth and then became rigid in my arms,”wept the young "mother’.
The man in-charge that day, Rameshwar Singh and the woman helper Rita Rani, took the shocked parents to Raipur Rani where the baby was shown to a doctor and was declared brought dead. Anil Kumar, the Sarpanch of Bharreley village said: "As soon as I reached the dispensary, I picked up the bottle from which the medicine had been given. The baby should have been given Vitamin A but was most probably given something else, a sheer act of negligence.”
The police have registered a case against the compounder and the helper, Rameshwar Das and Rita Rani for causing death by negligence. Both have been granted bail. The report of the post mortem is awaited. Interestingly, the village does not have a doctor of its own.
