Five officials fired over baby deaths

By Wang Qian and Ju Chuanjiang (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-03-31 08:30

Authorities have sacked five officials in a Tianjin hospital where five newborns died from unsanitary conditions in the maternity ward, health officials said yesterday.

The affected infants had received medical treatment in tainted incubators at the Jixian county maternal and childcare service center in Tianjin, Ministry of Health (MOH) officials confirmed. They did not provide details of the five who were fired.

The incubators in the center were "seriously contaminated and were not completely sterilized", while the disinfectant applied in the hospital failed to meet health standards and medical staff failed to carry out proper infection prevention measures, one of the MOH officials said.

The five infants died on March 22, a few days after they had been transferred to the Beijing Children's Hospital from the Jixian center. Three of the babies had been infected with a bacteria usually found in moist environments, Hou Xiaoju, a doctor from the Beijing hospital, told China Daily yesterday

"Newborns infected by contaminated incubators seldom occur in most hospitals," Hou said.

The Jixian center also signed an agreement to compensate the families of the five dead babies yesterday, with each family getting 180,000 yuan ($26,500) on top of a 9,000-yuan medical diagnosis payout, the China News Service reported.

Five parents of the victims said that during their stay in the hospital, they did not see anyone clean or sterilize the incubators.

They also told the agency that the relatives of the infants were allowed to see babies without taking off their shoes or using respirators and parents could take their babies' temperatures without any infection prevention guide.

The Jixian center owns 300 beds, including 31 for newborns.

Alert for HFMD outbreak

Health authorities in Shandong province yesterday raised the alert for hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD), with five fatalities and 5,227 cases in the region hit by the outbreak so far, MOH said.

More than 440 cases were reported to the local authorities on Sunday alone, MOH said.

As of yesterday, 81 experts had been sent to Heze city in Shandong to help with the treatment and control of the disease, MOH said. At least 18 children have died this year from HFMD, with more than 41,800 cases of the disease found in 30 provinces and regions, the health authorities said.

Xinhua contributed to the story