One of the two infants who had been gnawed upon in the Neonatal ICU of the the government-run Maharaja Yashwantrao Hospital (MYH) in Madhya Pradesh’s Indore died on Tuesday (September 2, 2025), officials said, adding the cause of the girl child’s death was pneumonia.
The incident of rat attack on infants in one of the State’s largest government hospitals has created a sensation, prompting the hospital administration to remove its nursing superintendent from the post and suspend two nursing staff.
Dr. Arvind Ghanghoria, dean of the Government Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, which the hospital is linked with, said that the firm responsible for pest control and cleaning at the hospital — The Agile Company — has been slapped with a fine of ₹1 lakh and a show-cause notice.
Dr. Ghanghoria said that two infants — a boy and a girl — had been bitten by rats over the weekend. The girl child, who he said, was suffering from pneumonia and was already in critical condition.
“As per the paediatricians, the child had a very low chance of survival due to Pneumonia. This child passed away this morning,” he said, adding that the other child, admitted to the hospital in critical condition with different congenital deformities, was now stable.
Dr. Ghanghoria, however, insisted that rats were only spotted in the hospital in the past three to four days due to heavy rains and a broken pipe.
“It rained very heavily three to four days ago in Indore and there was water logging in many parts including around the hospital. They [the rats] climbed through the pipes during this time,” he said, adding that action was taken against the nursing officials as they failed to inform the administration about the problem.
He said that a high-powered committee has also been formed to probe the incident and submit their report within a week.
“The company has now been asked to carry out pest control work in the entire hospital every seven days instead of every 15 days,” he said.
Dr. Ashok Yadav, the Medical Superintendent at the hospital, said that the first rat bite was noticed on Saturday (August 30, 2025) in the hand of a child.
“This was believed to be a kind of infection but when a rat was found at the spot the next day, then we thought that it was a rat bite. The child had bites at two places,” Dr. Yadav said, claiming that measures to deal with the rat problem are usually taken at regular intervals.
“We get pest control done and use rat control drugs every 10-15 days but this is a very unfortunate incident,” he claimed.
Dr. Yadav has been tasked with reviewing the entire situation by the hospital administration and take measures to avoid such incidents in future.
Leader of Opposition in the State Assembly and Congress MLA Umang Singhar, however, claimed that pest control had not been done at the hospital in five years.
Hitting out at the BJP government, Mr. Singhar said, “Have mercy on newborns, government…! Look at the condition of MY Hospital in Indore—innocent newborns are being gnawed by rats in the NICU, and the BJP government hasn’t even gotten pest control done for five years!”
Saying that this was not just negligence but “massacre”, the Congress leader said, “Hospitals are meant to save lives, but BJP has turned them into dens of death. Doctors and the system kept lying, while rats drank the blood of children. Is this the picture of BJP’s “Healthy Madhya Pradesh”? Shameful! This government is a bigger criminal than criminals.”
Published – September 03, 2025 02:48 am IST
