Three stories from a friend

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Today was a day of sad stories. A 1 day old girl was brought in Neonatal sepsis. The family was feeding her cows milk since the mother had to do the housework. This was the second girl and the father was palpably angry with his wife for perpetrating this crime. When we said the baby needed admission, he flatly refused. There was no point wasting money on this girl he said. He would take her home to die. And he herded his family into their sedan and drove away. All pleas and threats including calling the police fell on deaf ears. And the baby was not really sick and would've surely made it..... 

Then just now a 16 year old girl was brought dead to the casualty. She was 8 months pregnant. She had gone to the government hospital in the morning for breathlessness. From there she was told to go to a private clinic. She visited all the private clinics in M spending an hour or so and a good deal of money in each until she finally reached here. But she had expired on the way, just 10 minutes before she came into our hospital. From what I could gather from the history, she had severe anemia with heart failure..... She just needed a little blood, but none of the series of doctors she had seen was ready to do it...... 

The saddest story is of a little girl whose parents are really keen for her to survive, but she probably won't. Born preterm, at 1.7 kg, she has been with us for 5 days. She is now on a ventilator and her vital signs are falling gradually. Her parents are pushing us to do our best, but she probably won't last the night..... The realities of B are stark.... 

For every girl who is struggling to live there are two who are allowed to die. Is this our nation? 

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