24 people, including 12 newborns, died at a government hospital in Maharashtra in 24 hours on Monday. The hospital is located in the Nashik district of Maharashtra.
Authorities at the Shankarrao Chavan Government Hospital in Nanded said that the newborns, six boys and six girls, died due to insufficient medical resources.
Severely impacting survival chances, the lack of drugs meant that common and preventable illnesses took a deadly turn. Moreover, 12 adults died due to a variety of ailments, some of them as simple yet deadly as snake bites.
The hospital’s dean explained that the hospital is simply a “tertiary-level care centre”, but patients come from all over because it is the only health care facility within 70-80 kilometres. The number of patients admitted to the hospital sometimes exceeds the institute’s budget, causing a medicine shortage, he noted. It was made even more difficult by the fact that many hospital employees were transferred.
The dean also stated that the hospital was intended to purchase the medications from an institute called Haffkine, but this did not occur. He further stated that the medications were supplied to the patients after they were purchased from local retailers.
Reacting to the news, Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) spokesperson Vikas Lawande, in a post on X, said, “24 deaths, including 12 newborn babies, in 24 hours in a government hospital in Nanded were not only due to lack of supply of medicine by the state government. Shame on the government that advertises festivals and events.”
Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Priyanka Chaturvedi also attacked the BJP-led state administration, saying, “Please don’t call them deaths, this is murder due to absolute negligence on the part of the unconstitutional state government.” She accused the state government of being “busy planning influencer events or foreign trips” and said “they have forgotten their basic job is to serve the state.”
Congress leader Ashok Chavan also slammed the incident and said, “Around 24 people’s death has been reported at the Dr. Shankarrao Chavan Medical College and Hospital & therefore I have come here and met the Dean. The situation is concerning & serious. The government should take this up & provide immediate help…Around 70 other people are critical. Replacement of a lot of nurses who were transferred has not been given. All required help & resources should be given because the situation is concerning.”
Supriya Sule, the Working President of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), has called upon Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde to initiate an investigation into a recent tragic incident that claimed multiple lives. She placed the onus on the state administration, emphasizing that the ministers responsible should be removed from their posts promptly.
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