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In the tragic fire that claimed the lives of two babies at Telangana’s Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) on September 21, three other infants also died taking the death toll to 5. A two-day-old girl who was born prematurely at 28 weeks and weighed 1.1 kg was in a critical condition and died while being shifted to a nearby hospital on the same night.
The two other infants were premature babies, born between 26 and 28 weeks of pregnancy, and weighed around one kilogram each. Both these infants passed away on Tuesday.
Two babies were already killed in the fire that broke out at the Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) ward of RIMS, a government hospital located in Adilabad on Monday, September 21. Both were preterm babies on ventilator care.
Adilabad district Collector Rajarshi Shah told the media there were at least 27 babies in the SNCU at the time of the tragedy. The surviving infants were moved to private hospitals, he had said.
The fire broke out at around 11.40 pm on the night of September 21. According to reports, the fire was caused after an air-conditioner in the reception area of the SNCU burst into flames.
The exact cause of the fire is yet to be determined.
Additional Collector Rajeshwar said that some of the hospital staff broke the glass walls of the ward to bring the babies out.
Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy ordered an inquiry into the incident. He also instructed officials to strengthen safety measures across all hospitals to prevent such incidents from recurring.