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Correspondent

23 August 2024 at 9:59:04 pm

Fatal Negligence

Newborns dying in a fire inside a government hospital is a devastating indictment of a system that is supposed to protect its most vulnerable patients. The Amravati District Women’s Hospital tragedy, where a blaze killed three infants, joins a long list of preventable institutional failures. Thirty-nine babies were inside the three-compartment facility when the fire erupted after a ventilator in the neonatal unit caught fire. Thirty-six were eventually rescued. Parents and eyewitnesses have...

Fatal Negligence

Newborns dying in a fire inside a government hospital is a devastating indictment of a system that is supposed to protect its most vulnerable patients. The Amravati District Women’s Hospital tragedy, where a blaze killed three infants, joins a long list of preventable institutional failures. Thirty-nine babies were inside the three-compartment facility when the fire erupted after a ventilator in the neonatal unit caught fire. Thirty-six were eventually rescued. Parents and eyewitnesses have alleged that the fire alarms did not sound and the automatic sprinklers failed to activate even as the district administration has said the hospital underwent regular fire audits and had applied for this year’s audit. An audit is meaningful only if it establishes that equipment works when lives depend on it. Maharashtra has already witnessed the deadly consequences of fire-safety failures in public hospitals. In 2021, eleven Covid-19 patients died in a fire at the Ahmednagar district hospital even though a fire audit conducted months earlier had recommended a firefighting system. The Amravati tragedy demands more than the familiar ritual of a high-level inquiry, compensation and promises of “strictest action”. The announcement of ex gratia payments cannot compensate parents who have lost a child they had barely begun to know. The investigation must establish not merely what ignited the fire, but why it was allowed to become fatal. Was the ventilator properly maintained? Were electrical and medical devices routinely inspected? Did alarms function? Were sprinklers operational? Was the NICU appropriately located and equipped for evacuation? Were staff trained and drills conducted? And most importantly, who was responsible for ensuring that every safeguard worked? There is another troubling detail: the neonatal unit was reportedly housed on the third floor, rather than at ground level, and questions have arisen over whether the unit was part of the building’s original plan. The state has built an elaborate architecture of laws and child-protection standards which seldom matches the situation on ground. Whether in government hospitals, schools or anganwadis, safety has become a box to be ticked rather than a responsibility to be lived. The most vulnerable children are consequently left dependent not on systems, but on the vigilance and heroism of individual staff members. That is an appalling way to run the childcare infrastructure of one India’s most developed states. A NICU is perhaps the worst possible place for institutional complacency: its patients are immobile, medically dependent and extraordinarily vulnerable to smoke, heat and even brief disruption of life-support equipment. The government must ensure that the Amravati deaths do not become another entry in the grim ledger of hospital tragedies followed by inquiries, outrage and forgetting. The real test will be whether the state can prevent the next newborn from dying in a hospital that was supposed to save him.

A Fierce Tug of War

The capital’s high-stakes election pits Kejriwal’s populism against BJP’s weight and Congress’s nostalgia.

Delhi
Delhi

Delhi has always been a battleground not just for political parties but for competing visions of governance, identity and power. As the hectic campaigning for the February 5 Delhi Assembly elections winds down, the contest is shaping up to be one of the most fiercely contested in recent memory. For the first time in over a decade, Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) faces serious headwinds. The BJP, long consigned to the sidelines of Delhi’s politics, is making a renewed push, while the Congress, though battered, is hoping for a resurrection.


Kejriwal, the master of retail politics, has built his decade-long rule on a heady mix of welfarism, political theater and an unrelenting battle with the Centre. Yet, the cracks are beginning to show. The city’s voters, who once saw him as an anti-corruption crusader, are now grappling with allegations of graft within his own ranks. Ministers behind bars, developmental grievances and a resurgent BJP mean that AAP’s iron grip on Delhi may no longer be as firm.


For the BJP, Delhi has been an enigma. The party has ruled at the Centre with an unchallenged majority for a decade, yet its ability to win the capital has remained elusive. The last time the BJP held power in Delhi was in 1998, and since then, it has seen the city slip away despite repeated attempts to claw back. This time, however, the party has employed a different strategy: rather than relying on a singular leader, it is focusing on breaking into AAP’s bastions.


Delhi’s poorest voters have long been Kejriwal’s most loyal supporters, drawn in by his promises of free electricity, water and public transport. But BJP strategists believe these same voters are growing restless. Complaints about water quality, potholed roads, and stalled infrastructure projects have started to chip away at AAP’s appeal.


And yet, the BJP is hobbled by its old problem of lacking of a credible local leader. Unlike Kejriwal, whose face is plastered across every hoarding in the city, the BJP has deliberately avoided projecting a chief ministerial candidate. The official line is that the party fights on the strength of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s brand. But Delhi isn’t a Lok Sabha contest; it’s an intensely local election, and the absence of a clear challenger to Kejriwal could cost the BJP dearly.


Then there’s the Congress, a party that once ruled Delhi for fifteen uninterrupted years under Sheila Dikshit. Its collapse after 2013 was so absolute that it failed to win even a single seat in the last two Assembly elections. Now, it is fighting for relevance.


The Congress’s biggest gamble this time is its promise of a Rs.2,100 monthly allowance for women - a move clearly aimed at countering Kejriwal’s successful welfare playbook. But even its own supporters quietly acknowledge that an improved vote share is the best it can hope for. Winning seats remains a different challenge altogether. Muslim and Dalit voters, once the bedrock of the Congress’s support in Delhi, have largely moved to AAP. The party’s leaders are now working overtime to woo them back, but a decade of neglect is hard to undo in a single election cycle.


For the BJP, a victory would be a much-needed breakthrough in a city that has consistently resisted its advances. For Congress, any gains would signal that its long, painful exile from Delhi’s political map is finally ending.


Beyond the political stakes, there is also a cultural and symbolic dimension to the election. As Delhiites prepare to cast their votes, the city stands at an inflection point. The AAP juggernaut is still strong, but for the first time in years, it is facing a real contest. Whether voters opt for continuity or change will not just determine the fate of Delhi’s government but will reshape the narrative of Indian politics.

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