Principal Secretary, health and family welfare department, Jayanti Ravi, and fined Rs 5,000 by NHRC, on Friday for not responding to the commission despite repeated correspondence in connection with a complaint on the death of 18 infants. The bench said that the fine will be treated as compensation to the complainant.
The commission was hearing a complaint moved by a human rights activist D D’Souza on the death of 18 infants in the span of three days at the Civil Hospital in Asarwa in Ahmedabad in October last year. The bench was placed with the former Chief Justice of India and chairman of the commission H L Dattu and three other members, including former Supreme Court Justice PC Ghose and members Jyotika Kalra and D Murugesan.
The commission members took strong objection to the fact that despite its two notices, the health department didn’t respond. During the hearing, the bench sought an explanation from the principal secretary Jayanti Ravi and said, “How would we respond to the complainant? You take your own sweet time to file a reply but we will have to act. We have to justify the delay.”
They said that the complaint was filed in November last year and despite nearly six months not a single reply was filed by the department. They said, “Is this how you care for a child in the state?”
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Ravi sought apologies for the delay and said that she would personally inquire why the department didn’t respond. She also said that the death of the babies was for several reasons, including their “premature term, underweight (like 1,000 gram, 1,500 gram) and too many patients at the hospital…”
She said that the “parents from the catchment area of Ahmedabad come for the treatment… But in this case, they came after much delay.”
She also told the bench that nine of the infants who died had been referred from other hospitals.
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