The Government aided shelter in sad state, 6 hearing, and speech impaired inmates have died in 6 months
Six mentally-challenged persons including three minors have died at the Chembur based shelter home for special children in last three months. Three of them were suffering from tuberculosis and one with swelling of limbs and boils over body along with being hearing and speech impaired.
Two inmates—Mithun (10) and David James (42)— died on August 29 at the BMC-run Sion hospital after a brief treatment. Two more kids of the shelter died in September and a few are currently admitted for serious ailments.Despite such a grim situation and TB affected inmates, the shelter run by Children's Aid Society houses over 300 mentally challenged kids and over 500 destitute children, doesn't have an MBBS doctor or paediatrician.
A medico's post which is sanctioned for the MBBS doctor is filled up by an Ayurvedic doctor named Dr Wasule. He prescribes medicines for all ailments, takes care of health of all inmates with also doing medical check up of the inmates every three months, say sources.Among deceased was hearing and speech impaired Ajit (13), who passed away on August 5.
"The boy was deaf, dumb, mentally challenged, and immobile at the time of admission. He was being treated for all ailments in the shelter. On August 4, he was admitted at Sion hospital due to breathlessness but died next day," reads the shelter home's report submitted to the women and child development department on Thursday.
13-years-old Arun, a hearing and speech impaired boy also died in the ambulance while being treated by a doctor of Shatabdi hopsital.While sources claim that neglect, poor facilities and scarcity of caretakers were behind sudden deaths, however, the in-charge superintendent of the shelter Rahul Kanthikar, insists, "They died due to natural reasons despite proper care and health treatment. They were already suffering from complex health problems ranging from being dumb and deaf to severe mental retardation."
He admits having Ayurvedic doctor on board but blames it on government. "When we advertise for the post but we don't receive applications from MBBS doctors due to meager pay scale of Rs30,000 a month as prescribed by the government. We have no other option but to manage with Ayurvedic doctor," he says.
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