Two days after nine infants died in less than 24 hours at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, Asia's largest civil hospital, a probe panel has said that the deaths were not a result of alleged laxity or inadequacy of hospital staff or improper treatment facilities.
Out of the nine infants who died on October 28, five were referred to the Civil Hospital from other government facilities/health centres in the state and four were born at the Civil Hospital.
The root cause as per the findings was the extremely low birth weight of the infants and low health of mothers.
According to officials, five infants were referred from Lunawada, Surendranagar, Mansa, Viramgam and Himmatnagar.
A three-member probe panel comprising Dr Raghav Dixit, director of medical education, Dr Nilesh Shah, a gynecologist and Dr Himanshu Joshi, a pediatrician was formed by the state government.
Jayanti Ravi, health commissioner of Gujarat, said in Gandhinagar on Monday that out of the nine, four infants died of birth asphyxiation. Three died due to fragile conditions during their birth and two died of septicemia.
According to her, the probe team inspected equipment of the hospital and availability of medicines among other things. Jayanti said that as far as the hospital was concerned, there was nothing to be blamed.
The low birth weight of infants, malnutrition among children and health conditions of mothers, especially in the rural areas of Gujarat, have become debatable at a time when the state goes to polls in December.
Questions are also being raised over the state government's various schemes for children and mothers.
