A total of 24 patients including 12 infants died at a government hospital in Maharashtra’s Nanded in a time span of 24 hours.
Congress leader Ashok Chavan on Tuesday claimed that the death toll has continued to rise as seven more patients have died in the hospital since yesterday, taking the death toll to 31. Taking to X, Chavan wrote, “Death toll continues in Nanded. 7 more patients unfortunately died in Government Medical College Hospital since yesterday. 4 children are also included in the dead. The state government should determine the responsibility.”
A three-member expert committee, which was formed to probe the matter on Monday, will be submitting its report on Tuesday afternoon.
On the 24 deaths, Dr Wakode, the Dean of Doctor Shanakarrao Chavan Hospital, Nanded said six male and female infants have died in the last 24 hours, adding that 12 adults died due to various ailments like snake bites, phosphorous poisoning etc.
“People do come here from far-off areas. We usually get emergency and extremely critical cases in this hospital as there is no hospital available like us in the periphery of 70-80km. Due to transfers of various staff, there was some difficulty for us…we were supposed to buy medicines from Halfkin Institute but that also didn’t happen,” Wakode said pointing at the tertiary-level status of the hospital.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said that he will seek more information on the incident, adding that, appropriate action will be taken in this regard.
– Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief Sharad Pawar condoled the death of the 24 people and said that such an incident shows the failure of the government systems. Citing a similar incident that took place two months ago in Thane, Pawar posted on X, “…The state government needs to ensure that concrete steps are taken so that these incidents are not repeated and the lives of innocent patients are saved.”