Indiae
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Crib deaths-more a social than a medical problem!
Following the crib deaths in B.C.Ray hospital our new CM has declared to establish another pediatric hospital in Kolkata.It's certainly a welcome move.But what's is more important is to ensure that ailing children could get proper treatment at rural health centers so that they don't get so critically ill that they need be rushed to Kolkata hospitals.Hence proper attention should be given to improve the infrastructure of rural health centers.Admittedly, it's easier said than done.In the first place in our country compared to patients, number of doctors is abjectly inadequate.That apart,doctors are,definitely not all, averse to going to work in village hospitals so that these health centers always run short of doctors.Sometime ago to address this chronic problem of dearth of qualified doctors in villages proposals were made to have specially qualified health service providers(less qualified than MBBS) for rural health services.Perhaps for some reason or other move could not materialise.What's most important is due to abject poverty mothers don't get any prenatal care in most of the cases in our country and more often than not they give birth to premature babies as our CM herself observed at B.C.Ray hospital during her visit.These babies are extremely under weight and chance of their survival after birth is quite poor.So crib deaths are more a social than a medical problem.True, medical negligence or non availability of medical facility might aggravate this problem but unless pecuniary condition of people improve crib deaths are unlikely to reduce.
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Observations are well balanced and reasonable.But in the huddle of the happening of sad death of babies, some simple but crucial aspects got out of the attention of the experts which some scientists not belonging to the medical fraternity pointed out which are not reported in the media as a whole. For effecting change of the hospital as a first step, new paintings undertaken in the hospitals in the state. The babies are kept in the newly painted rooms. Underweight babies are extremely vulnerable, but those not so also succumbed though kept in ventilation. The poisonous gases from the paints must have been a major contributory factor, if not the only in most cases for the sordid happening. Even adults feel uncomfortable and suffocated in newly painted rooms.Perhaps this factor did not weigh much to the experts who are generally unidirectional in approach.
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