Health officials-touts nexus: 50 private clinics within 800m radius of Farrukhabad hospital

FARRUKHABAD: A day after the UP government shifted Farrukhabad DM Ravindra Kumar and a few health officials following reports that 49 infants died in a month at the Ram Manohar Lohia government hospital here, an eerie silence prevailed in the hospital’s infamous sick newborn care unit. But just outside, it was business as usual with dozens of private "hospitals" and clinics almost surrounding the lone government hospital, unleashing touts in hordes that wean away patients, sometimes by force, and subjecting unsuspecting pregnant women to hurried cesarean operations, many of which are botched up.
Sources in the administration TOI spoke to on Tuesday said that within just an 800 metre-radius of the government hospital in Farrukhabad there are over 50 registered private "hospitals". There are some two dozen maternity homes to add to the number. Quite a few, senior officials said, are run by quacks.
A kid was found sleeping on the floor outside SNCU ward on Tuesday afternoon, while no medical staff bothered to put him on bed
Somewhere the deaths of the babies at the government hospital have a direct link with this, all thriving from a nexus of health department officials, middlemen and private operators who seem to have very little to do with "healthcare".
Families of some of the dead children said women in labour are literally "hijacked" by touts lurking in their dozens in the vicinity of the superspeciality government hospital. “Ambulances meant for the hospital are turned to private clinics by these touts. These private hospitals charge Rs 20,000-50,000 for each delivery. In many cases, forced C-sections result in premature births with serious health complications for the newborn. Once the case goes wrong, these hospitals refer the seriously ill infants to Lohia hospital, while they keep the mother in their custody to retrieve the payment,” a senior doctor said.
Doctors in the city said there was no way the private clinics could operate without the connivance of health department officials. Indian Medical Association’s Farrukhabad president Dr Arvind Gupta added, “Out of the registered private hospitals, 70% are run by quacks. They have paid hefty bribes to officials to obtain licences. Without the involvement of senior doctors from RML hospital and health department officials, these quacks couldn’t have thrived.”
Private hospitals just 50 meters away from RML hospital.
The Farrukhabad deaths became a bone of contention between the district administration which ordered an FIR against the CMO and CMS (women’s ward) and the state government, which shifted the DM and criticized him for his “activism”. But there are unanswered questions
Chief medical superintendent (male ward) Dr B B Pushkar claimed that "in the
past one month, 24 infants, out of 145 referred by private hospitals, died in Lohia hospital. On the contrary, only six of 66 directly admitted to us died. Nineteen of 49 deaths were stillborn.”
The claims can be contested. For example, the hospital frequented by patients from several nearby districts said it doesn’t have records of child deaths of the past six months. It only has of the last one month. District magistrate Kumar, who was transferred by the state government on Monday, had ordered registration of an FIR against hospital officials after they failed to provide him records of deaths. Kumar had sent many reminders to these officials over a period of six months before he approached the cops.

Parents of the victims blamed both the private clinics and RML hospital doctors in equal measure for the present state of affairs. Sugreev Kumar, whose newborn boy died on August 14, said, “The Lohia hospital staff was cruel. My child died because of their negligence. Several ants were crawling on my child’s body even when he was alive and no staff came to remove them though we complained many times. We were not allowed inside the room. My child had a painful death.”
Rajeev Kumar from Kaimganj area of Farrukhabad district, whose day-old son died due to perinatal asphyxia in the same hospital, said, “I first came with my pregnant wife to Lohia hospital, but nurses on duty informed me about the unavailability of beds and asked me to admit my wife in a nearby private hospital. Now they are blaming private hospitals for the death of these kids. But it was they who sent us to those clinics.”