13 March,2015 07:13 AM IST | | Sadaguru Pandit
On the day she was to be sent home with her mother, the four-day-old infant was found on the ground behind the hospital, bleeding profusely from severe injuries on the back of her head
In a shocking incident yesterday, a newborn girl was allegedly thrown off a balcony at the very nursing home she was born in a few days ago, resulting in her death. The culprit is yet to be identified as there were neither eyewitnesses nor cameras to record what had happened.
The infant was born in Shubhada Nursing Home in Dombivli on March 8, and just four days later, she was found injured and bleeding on the ground behind the hospital
Panvel resident Sujata Gaikwad had given birth to the baby girl on March 8, after she was rushed to Shubhada Nursing Home in Dombivli (East) the previous day due to acute labour pain.
Sujata, who is already a mother of a three-year-old girl, woke up early last morning, to realise that her baby was missing. She alerted her relatives and the hospital's staff, who immediately began searching for the infant.
Eventually, one of the relatives found the infant on the ground behind the hospital, bleeding profusely from the back of the head, which was smashed in from the impact.
The hospital immediately informed the Dombivli police (around 8.30 am) who now suspect that the child was thrown from the second-storey balcony of the general ward, where Sujata had been shifted after the delivery.
Cop speak
"Since the nurses were not in the ward at that time and other patients were sleeping, there are no eyewitnesses to the incident. We have already interrogated the hospital authorities and will now speak with the relatives and parents of the child to get clues about the culprit.
As it was a maternity home, there were no cameras inside the hospital," said PSI Sagar Ghoge, from Dombivli police station, adding that an accidental death report has been filed and the body was sent to KEM Hospital for post mortem.
Doc speak
"Gaikwad was admitted in the hospital on March 7 and she gave birth to the baby girl the next day. It was a cesarean delivery but both the mother and the child were healthy. In fact, we were supposed to discharge them on Thursday and that's when this incident came to light," said Dr Pushkar Pradhan, gynaecologist at the nursing home.
