Despite deaths, officials failed to take action

A wall of official apathy proved fatal for at least 12 children in a government-run mental asylum in Jamdoli.

On April 16, the first case of diarrhoea was reported and within the next three days three children died. The superintendent of the centre, however, reported the incident to the chief medical & health officer only after the death of another girl on April 21. A team visited the centre and just collected water samples. No further action was taken even as children continued to die.

The director of health department had visited the centre on April 27 but minister for social justice and empowerment Arun Chaturvedi cancelled his visit. After the death of two more children, the minister called the first meeting and a team of doctors was sent from SMS hospital.

Mr Chaturvedi, who has now retracted his statement where he ruled out official lapse and blamed weak immunisation system among the mentally-challenged children as the cause of death, after the attending doctors have categorically pointed out carelessness by the staff at the rehabilitation centre.

When state BJP president Ashok Parnami questioned the doctors, they said it was too late to save the children. According to them, it appeared that the staff didn’t even care about regularly giving water to the children when the temperature is above 40 degrees.

In fact, contrary to the minister’s claim of proper arrangements, including enough space, proper sanitation and clean drinking water, there are only 10 rooms for 200 children, which means 20 children per room. Even worse, there were 96 girls cramped into just three rooms. Only eight rooms have cooler and the hall in which children roam around has an open roof.

Each child gets Rs 1,950 per month for diet and Rs 4,000 per annum for clothes. Yet, their clothes were torn and oversised. It is almost clear that contaminated food and water was the primary cause of their fatal illness.

According to doctors, prima facie it appeared that contaminated water was cause of the illness.