Ravaged Leh welcomes eight newborns
Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service
Leh, August 9
When nature’s fury was snuffing out lives in Leh, eight babies were born in the town. The eight babies, born in the last three days, are hale and hearty in a special delivery ward on the 2nd floor of the Sonam Marboo Memorial Hospital. The flash floods had filled the lower floors with mud.
Three babies were born on the intervening night of August 5 and 6, when nature was the most furious. Five expectant mothers managed to reach the hospital over the next three days.
Two of the babies have been placed in incubators in the lobby even though in ideal conditions the incubators should be placed in a contamination-free zone in a hospital. In such trying times, say hospital sources, when massive damage has been caused to the hospital, even getting a small corner is a “safe enough place”.
A senior gynaecologist, Dr Kunzey, said each of these eight woman has her own tale of survival to narrate. “Some of them came on foot, others were carried by their husbands or relatives. God was kind, as not a single delivery failed.”
She said many members of the hospital staff had been injured by the cloudburst “but all who could reach here that night came to help”.
Maya, who lived in Skara village, delivered a baby girl just hours after the massive destruction took place. She recounts: “There was a complete blackout at that time. There was mud and slush all around. I could hear cries all around me when I was being shifted to the make-shift operation room.”
Sakina Bano, who is from Assam and married to a local farmer, also gave birth to a girl on August 6. Her husband is busy retrieving whatever he could from their house near a government housing colony in the town as she recuperates after the childbirth. Dr Kunzey said the eight babies included six girls and two boys.
No comments:
Post a Comment