CAME TO THE CITY IN SEPTEMBER FOR HEART TREATMENT
Alfista Banu
Age: 1 year Resident of Indira Nagar slum,
Andheri west Death: November 28
When their younger daughter was 7 months old, daily wage worker Shamshad Khan, 30, and his wife Nargis, 23, were told that Alfista had a congenital heart defect. Being a sickly child, doctors refrained from getting her the vaccines she was supposed to get as per the universal vaccination program.
Their native village Samogara – where the couple was staying during the pandemic – is more than 200 kilometres away from Uttar Pradesh’s capital, Lucknow. The family decided to come to Mumbai in September to get Alfista treated.
Shamshad started getting regular work in the city even as Alfista was being treated at Wadia Children’s Hospital. Doctors were waiting for her pneumonia to subside and for the child to gain some weight to conduct the required surgery. However, while still in the hospital, she acquired a measles infection and was rushed to Kasturba Hospital on November 26.
On November 28, she passed away due to the viral infection.
For the past several months, one-year-old Reyansh Gupta got sick repeatedly. He was even hospitalised for almost a month for persistent fever, cold and cough. Just two days after he was discharged from the hospital,
Age: 13 months Resident of Naigaon, Bhiwandi Death: November 17
Rashida Haider Ali, 40, is still in shock over the death of her 13-month-old daughter who succumbed to measles on November 17. She had to see the little girl pass away in her lap his parents first noticed the rashes.
As per their traditional beliefs, the family held back from medicating the child as they thought that “mataji” would go away on its own. Reyansh could not be immunised against measles on account of his poor health, said his father.
It was only after a week the child was first taken to a hospital on November 13.
Reyansh immediately admitted to the ICU, and later put on a ventilator. Despite all the medical attention, he breathed his last on November 22. while she kept crying for help and awaited doctors’ attention.
Rashida believes her daughter could have been saved if she was admitted to the ICU immediately.
After reaching the hospital, the family was made to run from one department to the other for at least an hour. After this, she was admitted to the general ward and not to the ICU. On the hospital bed, the child started crying, coughing and breathing heavily. She died while her mother took her on her lap to comfort her.