Rajasthan: Newborn dies in ambulance due to ‘oxygen shortage’; hospital rebuts, says parents fed baby milk against advice

JAIPUR: A critically ill newborn died while being taken in an ambulance from one private hospital in Bharatpur to another in Jaipur. The family alleged that oxygen supply ran out Friday during the 200km journey but the Bharatpur hospital claimed the death was caused by the parents feeding the baby milk despite being warned not to do so because of a congenital disorder.Mukesh Jatav’s son was admitted with severe breathing difficulties to Bharatpur’s Zenana Hospital on Thursday within hours of birth, hospital superintendent Dr Nagendra Bhadoriya said. Doctors found the baby was born with a cleft palate and tetralogy of fallot (TOF) -a condition in which the food and respiratory pipes are connected due to acongenital anomaly.“We kept the baby in our NICU (neonatal ICU) for a day. The baby was gasping for oxygen, but we settled him in the NICU and later referred him to JK Lon Hospital (in Jaipur) for cleft palate surgery,” he said.Told family not to feed baby: Hospital“Before referring, we warned the family not to feed the baby as the milk could reach the lungs due to the congenital abnormality,” Bhadoriya said.After a few hours, a grieving Mukesh returned to the Bharatpur hospital with his baby’s body, and blamed the death on the lack of oxygen in the ambulance.Zenana officials denied the accusations. They cited a written declaration from the private ambulance provider about sufficient oxygen in the cylinder and insisted the family had fed the baby milk on the way. This caused the infant’s condition to deteriorate, after which the ambulance took the infant to a nearby sub-hospital in Bassi along the way, where the baby was declared dead, the officials said.