New Delhi: When Vinod and Jyoti welcomed their newborn son, it seemed like a fresh start after enduring the heartbreak of losing two babies—one to miscarriage and another to stillbirth. But their happiness was short-lived. Soon after admitting their son to Baby Care New Born Hospital in Delhi’s Vivek Vihar for breathing difficulties, it was ravaged by fire late Saturday night. Instead of taking their son home, the family faced the unimaginable task of identifying his body.
For others, too, the fire wasn’t just a fresh wound; it tore open old ones, multiplying their grief.
Through confusion and shock, Amroon Khatoon tried to support her son Masih Alam as they desperately searched for their newborn son at the GTB Hospital mortuary. Like Vinod and Jyoti, they too had lost another child.
“Five years have passed since that tragedy and they have not moved on yet. I pray to God, why do we have to face this again and again?” Amroon said.
Some families had come to take their newborns home Sunday, unaware of the tragedy, when they were met with a smouldering nightmare. The hospital was hollowed out and their babies were either receiving treatment at nearby neonatal care centres or lying dead at the Guru Teg Bahadur (GTB) Hospital mortuary.
Scenes of confusion unfolded in Blocks C and D of Vivek Vihar Colony, where some babies had been admitted at the nearby East Delhi Advance Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) Hospital. Families wandered desperately, seeking information about their ‘missing’ babies.
Nazim Chowdhary, 45, and his younger brother Anjar emerged from the neonatal care unit. They had not found Anjar’s 12-day-old daughter there. Even as reporters accosted the distraught father, Nazim told ThePrint that he knew all hope had evaporated. He’d come to the chilling realisation after the police directed him to go to GTB Hospital, which he knew housed a mortuary.
“I now understand that my niece is no more, but I don’t want to break the news to Anjar as it will break his heart,” Nazim said. It’s a reprieve that he knows can only last minutes at most.
The fire erupted around 11:30 pm Saturday, engulfing the entire building and killing six newborns. Delhi Fire Services have said that it was triggered by a short circuit and became uncontrollable due to oxygen cylinders stored on the ground floor of the two-story building. The hospital did not have a fore no-objection certificate (NOC), Delhi Fire Services (DFS) chief Atul Garg had earlier told ThePrint.
As the flames spread, neighbours evacuated the 12 babies who were inside. Despite their efforts and the arrival of firefighters, six infants were declared dead on arrival at the hospital. Another newborn had died before the fire.
The Delhi Police initially booked the director and owner of the nursing home, Naveen Kichi, under Indian Penal Code sections 304A (causing death by negligence), 336 (any reckless or negligent action that puts human life in danger or threatens personal safety) and 34 (common intention). However, after Kichi and an aide were arrested Sunday evening, stronger sections were added, including 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 308 (attempts to culpable homicide).
Also read: Lapsed licence, no fire exit & oxygen refilling — why Delhi hospital fire was disaster-in-waiting
All referred to Vivek Vihar hospital
All the infant victims of Saturday’s fire had been referred to the Vivek Vihar hospital from various medical facilities across Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.
“We shifted the child to the Vivek Vihar Hospital on the advice of doctors because he was suffering from an infection,” said Amroon Khatoon, adding that her son Anjar’s baby had been born at Dilshad Garden’s Mangalam Hospital.
The family wanted to take no chances since Anjar and his wife had lost their first child under similar circumstances five years ago.
Anjar, too, admitted his daughter on 15 May on the referral of Gupta Nursing Home in Shahdra because of an oxygen-related ailment.
“We were told the child had platelet deficiency and oxygen-related illness for which I was asked to admit her to the Vivek Vihar hospital. At the hospital. We were told she would be fine in four to six days,” a distraught Anjar said. “Now, having kept her there for 12 days, we have been asked to go to GTB Hospital to find out the whereabouts.”
Bulandshahr’s Ritwik Choudhary and Delhi’s Raj Kumar also followed a referral chain while admitting their respective babies, both of whom died in the fire. Choudhary’s baby was admitted to Vivek Vihar based on advice from a local hospital and his cousin, who consulted Dr. Brahmanand Lal from Harsh Vihar in Delhi. Raj Kumar admitted her daughter on the recommendation of Dr Ajit Gupta from Budh Vihar.
Another parent, Baidya Nath, shared a similar story. His son, born prematurely after only 27 weeks and 10 days of gestation, was referred by Mangalam Hospital to Vivek Vihar.
“We insisted on taking him elsewhere, but we were told to go to this hospital. They said it’s the best hospital for neonatal intensive care,” Nath told ThePrint. Fortunately, his son was among the five infants that survived the fire.
‘Not informed’
Among the anxious families waiting outside the GTB Hospital mortuary were three relatives of 28-year-old Uttar Pradesh constable Pawan Kaswan, whose six-day-old daughter had been admitted for ventilator support after a stomach infection after a referral from Ghaziabad’s Navjeevan Hospital. The family are reeling not just from the baby’s death, but the fact that they were not informed by the hospital.
“There’s no limit to how anguished we are at the loss of the child,” said Kasawan’s brother Yogesh. “The lack of information from the hospital has only made it worse.”
All the families of the deceased infants confirmed to ThePrint that they had not received any calls from the hospital administration. Instead, they learned about the fire through news channels or from friends and relatives.
Several families, including Kaswan’s, Alam’s, and Choudhary’s, made the difficult decision to withhold the news from the mothers, as the women are still recovering from childbirth.
“(The baby’s mother) is still recovering from the operation conducted six days back,” said Yogesh. “There was no point in troubling her at the start when we were not even sure of what exactly happened with our child.”
The situation was particularly agonising for families whose infants had been declared fit for discharge just a day earlier by Dr Naveen Kichi.
Raj Kumar, who had admitted his daughter a week back, recounted the horrifying turn of events.
“They told me on Saturday that I could take her home on Sunday morning,” Kumar said. “But when I came to take her home, I learned that the hospital had caught fire and that my daughter had succumbed.”
Baidya Nath, one of the fortunate few whose child survived the fire, shared his mixed emotions—relief and horror over what could have happened. “We were supposed to discharge him that day,” Nath said. “My son was lucky to escape that horrible night.”
The ‘death before fire’
Early Sunday morning, Delhi Police reported that six deceased infants had been recovered from the hospital, and that one of them had died before the fire began.
That baby’s grandfather, 63-year-old Sewaram from UP’s Jiwala, recounted the heartbreaking situation. His daughter-in-law Kusum had delivered a baby boy last Wednesday at a nursing home in Delhi’s Shalimar Garden. The baby was then admitted to the hospital for treatment of an infection.
Sewaram said the baby succumbed to the infection late Saturday night, just hours before the fire broke out, but he decided not to get the body home right away.
“My daughter-in-law gave birth to this child through surgery and she is still to recoup from it. Seeing her son’s body would have caused immense grief and affected her health adversely at night,” he explained.
Sewaram had planned to collect the body and take it home on Sunday morning after completing the necessary paperwork. However, upon reaching the hospital, he found it charred. He was then informed that his grandson’s body had been taken to the GTB Hospital mortuary.
(Edited by Asavari Singh)
its all a mafia be it the now distorted baby hospital, the fire dept. authorities, the municipality along with the govts… added to those hospitals, cliniks & doctors who referred these babies to this baby hospital without even bothered to know what safety it was offering… all these referring personnel too should be arrested, are equally responsible… as in the rajkot incident, here too its the same, we the public now need to each time for a visit to a hospital, check or inquire about safety measures being followed, all required certificates in place and valid…. bcos no govt. employee or govts would do anything