Outrage over child deaths in India

Minu Karmakar, right, wails as an unidentified relative, left, carries her dead child outside the B.C. Roy Memorial Child Hospital

KOLKATA, India (CNN) -- An inquiry has been ordered after at least 15 children -- most between the ages of one and four -- died at a government-run hospital in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.

In a case that has sparked outrage across India, parents of the children are accusing the B.C. Roy Memorial Child Hospital in Kolkata of negligence and health officials concede conditions at the hospital are far from adequate.

Grieving parents allege their babies were starved of bottled oxygen and died slowly.

Most of the children who died in the past two days were suffering from respiratory problems, stomach ailments and meningitis.

CNN NewsPass VIDEO CNN's Satinder Bindra reports that an inquiry has been ordered after many children died at a government-run, under-equipped hospital in Kolkata. (September 3) Play video

Hospital sources say many of the children admitted here suffer from terminal illnesses and these deaths should not be treated as an aberration.

"In my opinion this is a common phenomenon in this hospital because I have been here for several years and I have seen such things happen in different times," says hospital superintendent, Anup Mandal.

Bare bones

Nazrul Islam holds his son Maidul, 3, who died while being treated at the B.C. Roy Hospital

An inquiry has been ordered to establish how the children died. But these latest deaths are exposing the problems of a very bare bones health care system.

For years there have been mounting complaints hospitals are overcrowded, often lacking the medical infrastructure and coping with overworked staff.

Doctors say they urgently need modern facilities like ventilators, incubators and an intensive care unit.

At last count, approximately 300 children were admitted to this 250-bed hospital. Beds are sometimes shared by as many as three children.

Some nurses routinely supervise 40 critically ill children when health care professionals suggest there should be one nurse for every five patients.

Following the latest deaths the hospital is now admitting only critically ill children. In the past six months three hundred children have died here.

With parents and some political parties threatening protests, the crisis here is severely testing the state's communist government, which is promising medicare reforms.

But it is already too late for some parents, who will always remember this hospital as a place where their children died.