Families struggleto cope with the loss of tiny lives

New Delhi: The tragedy in east Delhi’s Vivek Vihar neo-natal care centre left families with a void that cannot ever be filled. The parents of the babies who died and those who suffered injuries continue to grapple with trauma and the financial aftereffect of the blaze.Some families whom TOI spoke to have received partial financial compensation for the tragic loss of their infants. Others await the gesture. Many of the parents are also unaware of what the investigation has revealed.Masi Alam lost his four-day-old son on May 25. The tot was on oxygen support. "It was around 7am when I received a phone call from my sister about the fire,” said Alam, who was shocked to hear that his child had died. “That call still rings in my ear because it turned my life upside down."It was someone’s greed that resulted in the loss of their precious children for the parents, said Alam, who has so far received Rs 1 lakh as compensation from the sub-divisional magistrate’s office.Seema hasn’t even had the cushioning offered by a govt compensation after losing her twin babies in the fire. "Nothing has been done for us so far,” she told TOI. “The scar will remain forever. We don't want to talk much about what happened that day."The daughter of Rakesh Kumar was luckier though she is still in hospital, where she is receiving treatment. "She will have to remain there for treatment for at least one month,” said Kumar. “The girl inhaled a lot of toxic smoke." Kumar too hasn’t received any compensation. "Nobody has offered us any help whatsoever,” the father said. “My family and my work life were affected by the fire. As a father, I am still traumatised by what happened to my baby." He desires to see the accused receiving the strictest punishment possible.Mithilesh Kumar would have been devastated if his son had perished. He had lost his daughter and, not wanting another tragedy on his hand, had rushed his son to the neonatal centre when the newly born infant experienced respiratory difficulty. "I had already lost my daughter, so thinking this was a good children’s hospital, I admitted my son here,” said Mithilesh.Upon learning about the fire at the hospital, Mithilesh and his relatives hastened to the facility and had the baby promptly transferred to another hospital for further treatment. After several weeks of medical care, the child's condition has stabilised. Mithilesh, a delivery executive, had to take a loan of Rs 2 lakh to cover the expenses of his son's treatment.This has left Mithilesh in a challenging situation because he has been unable to return to work due to the need to care for his child and support his wife. All that he got in the form of financial assistance was a paltry compensation of Rs 20,000. "I don't know how I will repay the loan,” he groaned. “After the incident, I haven’t returned to work because I have to take care of my baby and my wife."Madhuraj Kumar, a painter whose eight-day-old son was admitted to the hospital, said that in his case too only Rs 20,000 had been deposited in his account as compensation. The baby had been born prematurely and that is why the family had hospitalised him. “We are slowly rebuilding our lives,” said Madhuraj. “My wife is still in trauma. Imagine what she faced as a new mother." Like Mithilesh, Madhuraj too hasn’t been able to go back to work for a month and it has made a serious dent in the family finances.
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