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LUCKNOW: Fate of a girl child hangs in balance. Born to a supposedly underprivileged couple having three minor daughters, ‘Durga’ (to refer the infant) was left abandoned in a government run hospital of Lucknow.
Hours after birth in Ambedkar Nagar government hospital (some 200 km away from state capital) in the second week of January, Durga was referred to King George's Medical College.
Due to premature birth, the infant had developed several health complications including apnea (respiratory distress) and gastrointestinal bleeding. For next 79 days, the girl under the care of a team of medical staff fought against odds including bacterial, fungal infection and even went on ventilator and oxygen support for several days.
On Durga Ashtami (Wednesday) when small girls were being invited at homes for ‘kanyan pujan’ to show the gratitude towards the goddess, the newly born destitute with merely 1.9 kg weight was discharged from KGMU’s pediatric ward under the custody of ChildLine, and they presented her to child welfare committee.
The CWC ordered the ChildLine unit to lodge the infant at a child shelter home based at Parag Narayan Road, but the staff refused to take custody of the girl citing that she was still not well and needed medical care.
“The infant was immensely underweight, and froth was coming out of her mouth. Since we recently lost four infants at a shelter home, the staff was not ready to take a chance and advised ChildLine to take the infant back to hospital,” said district probation officer Lucknow, Vikas Singh.
However, the ChildLine team who was assured by KGMU that the infant's health was normal, decided to shift the abandoned kid to Aliganj based private orphanage (Shri Ram Audhyogic Anathalaya).
“We had no other option, but to shift the infant to any shelter home which was ready to keep her under their roof, as doctors had declared her fit, and there was no way to trace her parents,” said coordinator Vivek Sharma of ChildLine.
Speaking to TOI, Prof Shalini Tripathi, faculty KGMU pediatrics department said, “Infant is hemodynamically stable. She is able to breathe in normal room air, pass stool and urine, and is able to feed on mother’s breast milk. She was also gaining weight, and there were no fresh health complaints, hence she was discharged and was advised to follow up in OPD.”
However, the manager of Shri Ram Audhyogic Anathalaya, O P Pathak who took second opinion on the infant for private child specialist told TOI, “The girl is underweight and the doctor informed us that, limbs are very weak which can develop deformity. Our orphanage hardly receives any funds from the government and we mainly depends on funding from private to take care of orphan minors, therefore it would be difficult for us to get continuous medical care from a good hospital.”
He said, “Our team will try to take the infant to KGMU if a situation arises, but without funds it would be hard to manage things, as we have other children also to take care of.”
