Infant Chewed to Death by Killer Rats At Government Hospital, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh

The shocking incident took place at the neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) at the Government General Hospital (GGH) in Guntur.

A 10-day-old baby boy was undergoing treatment at the hospital, where rodents scratched the face, bit the left eye and also his fingers. The infant was initially admitted to the pediatric ward and later shifted to NICU for observation for the last one week.

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The hospital has around only 9 neonatal ICU and 12 Paediatric ICU beds and therefore is struggling to cope with the inflow of more than 450 patients every day.

His parents were shocked to see him bleeding profusely in the morning. When they rushed to the on-duty doctor, he allegedly did not respond to the emergency resulting in the death of the baby.

”They (staff at Government General Hospital Guntur) are responsible for the death of my child. We had been complaining about the presence of rodents for some days, but they did not take any action. We want our child back,” said Chavali Lakshmi, his mother

"We suspected the danger a week ago and requested the staff to save our son. They were not bothered as they did not take our word seriously," complained Ch Nagaraju, his father.

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Parents of the two infants suffering from jaundice and respiratory infection respectively accused the doctors for not attending the newborns immediately.

Some patients of the hospital said, “there have indeed been instances of rodents attacking infants, but the authorities did not bother to take steps to check the menace.”

"It is an unfortunate incident. We set up a rat mesh in NICU soon after receiving complaints about the movement of killer rats. We did not expect that it will take this turn," said Dr T Venugopala Rao, GGH superintendent.

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The team led by the director of medical education and training will look into the deaths of infants at the Sardar Vallabbhai Patel Post Graduate Institute of Pediatrics.

Meanwhile, with the incident creating ripples across the city, AP health minister Kamineni Srinivas has ordered an enquiry into the tragedy.

Source-Medindia

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