5,000 babies, 1,000 mothers died in Mumbai's civic-run hospitals over last 5 years: RTI

Medical experts and doctors mainly blame lack of prenatal treatment behind such a sustained rise in maternal and perinatal deaths Representation picAt a time when the government is keeping no stone unturned to decrease child and maternal mortality thousands of babies and mothers have breathed their last on delivery tables across the cityrsquos hospitals In the past five years as many as 5377 babies died perinatal relating to the time immediately before and after birth deaths in four major BMCrun hospitals and 1381 mothers passed away while giving birthThe data has been accessed through a series of Right to Information requests filed by midday over two monthsEvery day at least four lives are lost mdash of mother and child mdash during delivery in the biggest civicrun hospitals KEM Sion Nair and Cooper There has been 32 per cent rise in the number of deaths of pregnant women from 2014 to 2015 alone in the four major hospitalsWorrying riseIn 2011 273 maternal deaths have been recorded in the four hospitals that rose to 362 last year KEM Hospital the biggest civicrun hospital has recorded the highest number of fatalities where 434 mothers succumbed while giving birth to their babies Shockingly the numbers at Sion Hospital doubled in 2015 compared to the previous year In 2014 69 maternity deaths were reported in the hospital that rose to 138 in 2015 Moreover in same period 105 mothers have died because of excessive bleeding during and after deliveryThis worrying trend appears at a time when hospitals have seen a fall in the number deaths of patients but cases of maternity deaths keep rising steadily every yearDying while being birthedAs per the data accessed by midday through RTI as many as 5377 infants died on the delivery table before they could open their eyes to the world Except Nair Hospital the other three hospitals have seen a rise in the foetal death rate by 10 per centIn 2014 Cooper Sion and KEM hospital recorded 634 foetal deaths in 2014 that increased to 703 in 2015 Only Nair recorded a fall from 615 in 2014 to 423 in 2015 But sadly Nair hospitalrsquos death record constitutes 46 per cent of the total foetal deaths in the past five years among the major hospitals In this period 2482 foetuses died in Nair followed by 1628 in KEM 746 in Sion and 521 in CooperBut what is causing such a sustained rise in the number of deaths Medical experts and doctors mainly blame lack of prenatal treatment Dr Saida Khan a member of BMCrsquos health committee said the deaths could be caused due to multiple reasons including the nutritional levels of the pregnant woman premedical complications etc When asked about why there is steady growth in the number of deaths she said that she would be able to comment on it only after checking all the documentsSpeaking to midday Dr Ramesh Bharmal Dean of Nair Hospital said that most of the deaths are among the unregistered patients who come from peripheral hospitalsldquoIf you check the number of deaths among our registered patients they are very less Most of these patients are obedient and come for regular check ups during pregnancy so the complications during delivery decrease Being a tertiarylevel hospital we get many transferred patients from other hospitals who mainly come with serious health conditions Being a civic hospital we donrsquot have a refusal policy and admit all patients So when they die during delivery or give birth to stillborn babies it gets accounted in our hospital though they are not our regular patientsrdquo he saidLack of checkupsDr Ganesh Shinde Dean of Cooper Hospital and head of its gynaecology department said as most of the patients come from underprivileged social and economic background they lack awareness about the requirements of health check ups before during and after pregnancy This leads to complications and the mother and their child often die due to excessive bleeding and infectionsldquoThere are four steps in a pregnancy mdash preconception prenatal intranatal and postnatal It is essential to follow all four steps properly to have a healthy and safe delivery But the patients that we get lack such knowledge and discontinue the treatment during pregnancy There is no problem with the facilities in hospitals it is the attitude of patients that isrdquo he said