A newborn baby boy, barely 10 days old, died after being attacked by rats in a government hospital in Andhra Pradesh, India. After he was born, the baby was transferred to the pediatric ward at the Guntur Government General Hospital (GGGH) where he was treated for piperiasis, a congenital disorder.
"Early on Sunday morning, my son started crying," the baby's mother, Lakshmi Nagaraju, told the Indian Telegraph. "As we are not allowed to stand next to the incubator, I urged the nurses to check on him. By the time they did, rats had eaten away the fingers of his right hand and also the eye."
Upon discovery of the attack, hospital personnel immediately transferred the newborn to the ICU, but he was later pronounced dead. Chavali Nagaraju Babu, the baby's father, claimed the hospital aggravated their grief further when a superintendent insulted him. "This morning, the hospital superintendent told me I need not worry as I have another son," he said in the Indian Telegraph report.
The rats bit the baby on other parts of his body, including the face and chest. It turned out it was not the first time that rodents attacked the baby. "The presence of rodents had come to our notice on Monday morning and I asked the engineering wing to carry out repairs to the false ceiling, but unfortunately this morning, the rodents attacked the newborn again," said Dr. T. Venugopala Rao, the hospital's superintendent, in the Hindu report. The hospital allegedly put rat traps in place after the first complaint was made, reported NDTV.
Andhra Pradesh Health Minister Dr. K. Srinivas reportedly ordered a probe into the incident, according to NDTV.
