A three-day-old boy has tested positive for the coronavirus along with his mother in Mumbai, The Indian Express reported on Thursday. It is suspected that they caught the infection from the bed of a Covid-19 patient at Sai Hospital in Mumbai. The boy is Maharashtra’s youngest Covid-19 patient.
On March 26, the newborn was delivered at the Chembur-based hospital. A day later, the 26-year-old mother and her son tested positive. “Since March 27, no nurse or doctor visited my wife and son at Sai hospital,” the father told the newspaper. “They completely abandoned us.”
The father, who is a restaurant manager, said he had booked twin-sharing room for his wife at Sai Hospital, especially to avoid risk of contracting infection. “I was concerned about the coronavirus,” he added. “So, we booked an entire room. Two hours after delivery, the staff asked us to vacate the room and moved us to another bed. They did not tell us why. The next day, a doctor called and asked us to get tested for the virus.”
On March 31, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation asked the hospital to shut down. Ward officer Prithviraj Chauhan said the hospital was shut to undertake sanitisation. “We had to disinfect all the surfaces,” he added.
The woman and the son were later shifted to Kurla Bhabha Hospital and from there to Kasturba Hospital on Tuesday. The family also claimed that no paediatrician has visited the baby and the mother at Kasturba Hospital – the nodal centre for Covid-19 cases in Mumbai – since they have been admitted.
The father has urged Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to help his family, according to NDTV. “I spent Rs 13,500 from my pocket to test my wife, my child and myself,” he added. “I told the doctors we could not leave till the results came back. They forced me to leave, saying the hospital was closing. They took more money from me to settle the bill and threw us out.”
The 32-year-old added that hospital staff cannot behave in such a manner. “Now I just want my child to get good treatment and I am begging Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to please look after my child,” he said.
An unidentified Kasturba Hospital employee said the mother and child have been given only symptomatic treatment. Currently, the hospital is treating over 120 coronavirus patients.
Maharashtra has so far reported 335 coronavirus cases – the highest in India, according to the health ministry data. Two coronavirus cases have been reported from Mumbai’s Dharavi in the past day, heightening worries of the rapid spread of the virus in the city.
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