Hyderabad: A right to information (RTI) query by Achyutha Rao of Balala Hakkula Sangham revealed that nine children died of various causes between January and September, 2019 at the Shishu Vihar in Yousufguda.
The October 21 reply said 210 children live in the complex. The causes of death ranged from respiratory failure, genetic disease, fungal infection and low birth weight with encephalitis.
Mr Rao said the number of deaths over just eight months indicate the poor quality of healthcare at the Shishu Vihar. “Children who are sent are poor, their parents incapable of taking care of them,” he said. “If the Shishu Vihar is incapable of saving them, what’s its purpose?”
Other sources claimed children both healthy and unwell ‘live in large rooms’, and are not separated. Sick children often do not get necessary attention.
However, Shanti Laxmi Bai, the Hyderabad district welfare officer in the women and child welfare department, said the deaths cannot be blamed on the Shishu Vihar. “The children brought to us are generally malnourished and unhealthy. We do everything we can to help them,” she said.
Children would often be sent to private hospitals if services at Niloufer were found unsatisfactory. “If doctors at these hospitals are unable to save the children, they cannot be faulted,” she said.
Rao scoffed at the logic. “The Shishu Vihar is a government apparatus — it has one joint director to oversee operations, a supervising officer, three doctors and several aayas (nurses),” he said. “They spend lakhs on medicines. They don’t have any excuses.”
The RTI reply also revealed that `5.84 lakh had been spent on medicines between January 1 and July 31.
