AURANGABAD: The recent death of an infant who was delivered on stairs of Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) on Tuesday has brought to fore the mismanagement and carelessness of state-run hospitals.It has also come to light that the woman had first gone to Cantonment General Hospital and the staff referred her to the GMCH after administering some medicines. City-based activists on Thursday alleged that the carelessness of staff and absence of doctors is common at the hospital run by the Cantonment Board.The woman, who was eighth months pregnant, had come to her parents living in Cantonment’s Subhash Peth area. According to her mother Kamal Kale, she was first taken to the Cantonment General Hospital after she complained of pain. Later, the woman and her parents reached the GMCH at 1am on Tuesday.Vinod Dhamande, assistant resident medical officer at Cantonment Hospital, said he has gone through the file of the patient. “The patient was given medicines for irritable uterus by the on-duty doctor so as to relax the uterus contractions. She was told to go to the GMCH if the pain did not subside,” Dhamande said.Cantonment Board CEO Vijaykumar Nair said he is not aware of the case but added that the hospital doesn’t have a gynaecologist in the night. “If it is a normal delivery, the on-duty doctors and nurses conduct the delivery. May be they realised that the case in question required help of a specialist so they referred her to GMCH,” he said.The hospital is also said to face frequent shortage of medicines and has only one permanent gynaecologist. Activist Mayank Pande of Chawni Yuva Manch said that the hospital often refer delivery patients to the GMCH during night hours . “With the amount of people the hospital is catering to, it should have a gynaecologist round the clock. Interviews have been conducted but the appointments are not done citing high remuneration demand of the candidates,” he said.Laxman Deshmukh, another activist, said the government has issued a resolution which obligates the government hospitals to see to critical deliveries free of cost. “The hospital has not even sent a proposal to the Central Government to get the necessary equipment or specialists to carry out critical deliveries,” he said.

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