New Born Child Dead In Jalandhar: ₹200 Is The “Cost Of Life” In A Developing Nation Called India

By Tanaya Singh:

“Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, can be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.” ― Dorothy Parker

With increased incidents of repeated “avoidable” deaths, India has reached to this very stage where people are now irritated by the thought that the society they live in seems to have turned into one where its beings feed on other’s lives for the greed of money.

A civil hospital in Jalandhar saw the death of a new born girl before she could feel the doomed world that she was born into, because of the mere reason that her parents were a little late in arranging a HUGE sum of 200 rupees which could have saved their daughter’s life. She was born on 22nd July and was suffering from jaundice. Due to this, it was necessary for her to be kept in the photo therapy unit.

According to the infant’s mother, she was in the unit on 23rd and 24th July. However, after these two days, the nursing staff on duty asked Anita Kumari, the child’s mother to deposit ₹200, as a charge for keeping the patient in the incubator. Her husband, Sanjeev Kumar, was arranging the money at this instant, when their baby was placed out of photo therapy, after which she stopped showing any movement at around 4pm on Wednesday.

The scared nurses on duty, put the child back in the unit, just to save their backs, and later at 7:30pm, informed that the girl was no more. Now that the child’s father has asked for justice, the entire series of blaming, hiding, meddling with official records and lying has begun, all so common in our country.

A committee headed by additional deputy commissioner Parneet Bhardwaj is on duty to look into the matter on the orders of health minister Madan Mohan Mittal who is in turn working on the directions of chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. According to Bhardwaj, nurse Harjit Oberai who postulated the said deposit was actually not supposed to be on duty, but the assigned nurse also did not take the pains of informing any doctor about his actions. Dr Saru Jhanji who was on duty in the ward, said the girl died due to being fed in a wrong manner, and also refused charges against the staff, saying that the suffering child was not placed out of that photo therapy unit. In the meanwhile, a compensation of one lack has been announced for the family.

A dead child, lamenting mother, a fighting father, an inquiry committee, the hierarchy, the sneaking criminals and a compensation to shut everyone. Why are these, the most common happenings in India these days? What part of “developing” in the phrase “developing nation” is being drawn in the reverse direction?

When Amir Khan spoke of inefficiency, negligence and money mindedness of the doctors and the hospital staff, there were a hundred “well-educated-skilled-medical-fingers” pointing at him, in spite of the point of the undoubted existence of good doctors been made very clear. So where are the so called protectors of human lives now? The baby girl is dead, and so will be her parents’ hopes if the case is handled with the same negligence as their daughter.