In an unfortunate incident, a two-year-old child lost his life after getting the wrong injection at an unregistered hospital in Govandi, eastern Mumbai on Wednesday, January 19. The two-year-old was allegedly administered by a home sweeper.
As per sources, the Shivajinagar police has booked the 17-year-old sweeper under the Juvenile Justice Act. Apart from the sweeper, the police booked Dr Altaf Khan (29), a BUMS, and the owner of the nursing home Nasimuddin Sayyed (63), on the charge of death by negligence. However, till late Thursday, no arrests were made.
According to the police, the two-year-old, Taha Khan, was admitted at the Noor nursing home with complaints of fever and loose motions on January 12. Before heading home, the doctor at the time asked the RMO to inject a 16-year-old patient with the drug, Azithromycin but since the RMO was not available, he asked a nurse to administer the dose to the teenager.
The police said, "The RMO wasn’t available and he asked the nurse to give the drug to the teen. The nurse paid no heed, and the sweeper asked if she could administer the jab. But instead of giving it to the teen, she injected the two-year-old, who died immediately."
As per the police, there was no mention of the injection in his medical reports and was soon rushed to another hospital where he was declared dead.
Regarding illegal nursing homes, East Mumbai Health officer, Dr Harishchand Navneet said that there were 24 unregistered and 41 registered nursing homes in the Shivajinagar area and no new registrations have taken place since 2009 since the nursing homes do not meet the criteria laid down by BMC.
