A newborn at the Visakhapatnam hospital.
At a ward in a prominent Vishakhapatnam hospital, babies wailed in the stifling heat as long power cuts on Monday left doctors and hospital staff struggling to provide basic care, a fall-out of protests against the division of Andhra Pradesh to create Telangana.
With incubators at King George Hospital, Visakhapatnam's only super-specialty hospital, not working properly, affecting newborns, the hapless father of an infant appealed to the anti-Telangana protesters to restore power to the hospitals and save the children.
"My appeal to protesters is to let the hospitals function so that these little children here are not put to hardships," the father of a newborn said. (
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"There are so many cases in the unit. And two babies are on ventilator. Without power, it is very difficult for us to give the little amount of injections that these neo-natal patients need. We have to load the doses correctly," a doctor at the hospital said.
Hospital authorities said they have back-up for barely a few hours, and are spending Rs 20,000 per day for generators.
The crippling power crisis has hit the essential health services with most hospitals in coastal Andhra Pradesh and Rayalaseema regions - jointly known as Seemandhra - facing acute blackouts. (
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With air conditioners not working, the heat and sultry weather added to the suffering of the burns patients.
Reports say bodies have also been rotting in the mortuaries in various hospitals as their postmortem could not be conducted.
The erratic water supply in the hospitals has made it worse. Sources said some patients have demanded to be discharged in absence of proper medical care.
At least 30,000 power sector employees in the Seemandhra region are on strike, protesting against the Centre's decision to create Telangana, announced last week.