Families of the newborn babies who died in a fire at Baby Care New Born Hospital in New Delhi's Vivek Vihar on Saturday, May 25, are in despair because of lack of information about the victims and the cause of their deaths.
“Allah ko pyaari ho gayi meri beti" (My daughter is in Allah's care), sobbed a father, whose 11-day-old daughter was among seven newborn babies who died in the fire.
She is yet to be identified.
"My daughter was born on May 15 at another hospital. They asked us to keep her in the childcare hospital for 72 hours for observation. After that, we admitted her to the childcare hospital, where she had been for the last 10 days," he said, according to PTI.
"My friends called and told me that there was a blast at the childcare hospital in Delhi where my daughter was. When I found out and came here, I learned that my daughter had passed away," he said.
Families are struggling to identify their children. "Yesterday I met my baby, and this morning we received information about the fire. Since then, we have
been trying to find out about her," said Ruhi's mother. The 17-day-old baby, another victim, had been admitted to the hospital with fever.
"We admitted her to this hospital to make her better, but we idn't know that this hospital would take away our only child," she said.
"They removed her necklaces, including her 'Najar ki mala' (necklace believed to ward off evil). When they took her in, she was just wearing a diaper," the mother from Delhi's Karkardooma said. Ruhi was born on May 10.
A fire broke out at Baby Care New Born Hospital at around 11:30 PM on Saturday, officials of the Delhi Fire Services (DFS) said.
The blaze quickly spread to two adjacent buildings, requiring 16 fire tenders. Three buildings were affected by the fire.
For some families, this is a second blow. Masialam, a labourer and father of another fire victim, had lost a son five years ago. “I have lost my newborn son.
What kind of facilities do they have? You can ask the parents who have sold their jewellery or taken money on interest for the treatment of their children," he said.
Masialam's child was born in another hospital. After the father found out he had an infection the baby was admitted to Baby Care New Born Hospital. He has a three-year-old daughter, the only child now as her older brother died five years back.
The mother of another victim has not been informed about the death, her relative, Parvinder Kumar, said, "This was the first child of my relative, Pawan Kumar. We have no idea how the incident unfolded. The girl was born around six days ago at a hospital in Ghaziabad and was admitted to the care centre the same day. "
the newborn had breathing problems and was improving in the care centre. "Our relative called us at around 9 am and informed us about the incident. The negligence was on the hospital’s part. Strict action must be taken against its owner,” said Kumar, who belongs to a family of farmers from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh.
Hritik Chaudhary, whose newborn son also died in the fire, said none of the officials visiting the hospital had any information about the fire or the credentials of the hospital.
"They have no answer if the hospital was legal, or whether the hospital had an NOC from the fire department."
Chaudhary’s cousin, Robin said they came to know about the tragedy from news on television.
Grief and anger got the better of the relatives of the dead children when District Magistrate (DM), Shahdara, Ritisha Gupta reached GTB Hospital, where the bodies had been kept for postmortem. Many of them shouted, "Humein Insaaf Chahiye” (we want justice).
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