Parents and relatives of an infant ransacked the Urban Primary Health Care Centre (UPHC) in Arakkonam town in Ranipet on Saturday blaming the vaccination of the baby by the duty doctors and other staff in the centre as the cause of the death.
Police said that D. Vishwa (50-day-old) was brought by his parents K. Dinesh (26) and D. Shanta (22), residents of Dalit colony near the town, to the centre on December 27 for routine vaccination. The paediatrician at the centre administered vaccines to nine children including Vishwa on the day.
The couple returned home with the child. However, Vishwa got a fever the following day and was given syrup by his parents as per the doctor’s instructions. Around 5.30 a.m. on Saturday, Vishwa was found unconscious and was rushed to the Government Taluk Hospital in the town by his parents where doctors declared him brought dead.
Along with relatives and other residents in the colony, parents ransacked the UPHC after a heated argument with the duty doctors and staff in the centre around 10 a.m. on Saturday. Based on an alert, Arakkonam Town police rushed to the centre and pacified the agitated people. After more than an hour of talks, parents agreed to conduct a post-mortem to ascertain the actual cause of the death. A case has been filed by the police.
“The paediatrician at the centre has administered vaccines to eight other babies on that day. They are all safe. Nevertheless, the postmortem, which will be done at the Government Medical College Hospital in Vellore, will reveal the exact cause of the death,” K. Manimaran, Deputy Director of Health Services (DDHS), Ranipet, told The Hindu.
Health officials said that the baby boy was born in 26 weeks as against the normal nine months at the Government District Headquarters Hospital in Tiruvallur. He weighed only 1.5 kgs as against the required birth weight of two kilograms. As a result, he was not discharged from the hospital by the doctors there until he gained the stipulated weight a month later after receiving regular nourishment.
Initial inquiry by health officials revealed that mother gave milk to the baby early in the morning. He was allowed to sleep immediately. Health officials said that this could have led to milk aspiration to the infant, resulting in suffocation and death.
