Hyderabad: A one-year-old baby who drank turpentine oil at the Laurel Pre-School at Yousufguda on June 13 is fighting for his life in intensive care unit of a hospital.
Sriyansh has developed severe pneumonia due to the ingestion of petroleum chemicals, causing his lungs to collapse. A medico-legal case has been registered but there was no complaint made by the parents, Mr D. Naveen and Ms Brahmini against the day care centre.
The pre-school is paying for Sriyansh’s initial treatment at Rainbow Hospital. The incident came to light when Sriyansh developed breathlessness and was rushed to the hospital.
The lungs were badly affected and he was first put on a normal ventilator support. When his condition did not improve, Sriyansh was put on the extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine (ECMO).
Dr Parag Shankarrao D., consultant paediatric intensivist at Rainblw Hospital said, “The lungs of the child must recover which is why he has been put on ECMO or the heart and lung machine. The quantity of turpentine oil was high which is why the child was so badly affected.” Sriyansh is expected to stay in the hospital for three to four weeks. “It depends on how the lungs recover,” Dr Shankarrao said.
The turpentine oil is brightly coloured and stored in colourless plastic bottles. The day care centre had kept the bottle within the reach of the children. With more than 30 children in the age groups of one to seven years in the centre, monitoring is a challenge for the day care centre. The SR Nagar police stated that a medico-legal case was registered with them but there was no FIR against the day care centre as there was no complaint made by the parents.
A senior official of the hospital on condition of anonymity stated, “Parents are distraught and they are being counselled by the hospital team. The first priority is to save the child and that is their main focus now.”
