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Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad visited the General Hospital here on Sunday to ascertain reasons for recent infant deaths in the state. Azad said the hospital is inadequate to handle large number of patients since there is shortage of medical staff, besides lack of sanitation in the wards, and added that remedial measures have been initiated. "The children have come from various distant districts. This hospital is inadequate to handle so many (ill) children. Another reason is shortage of doctors and nurses and sanitation," he noted. He mentioned that the hospital would provide free medicine, tests and food to less than one-month-old infants from May 21. "They (the hospital administration) will ensure medicine, tests and food (to less than one month old infants) from tomorrow (May 21) onwards," Azad said. He also informed that the required number of nurses would be deployed within a week's time. "They (the hospital administration) have published an advertisement four days back. All the required nurses would be deployed this week and they would be trained for 15 days on their tasks," he informed. The state government has ordered probe into the incident of infants' deaths. The Army Cantonment Board and the Government Medical College (GMC) run the hospital jointly but reportedly, they have failed to provide all the essential facilities to the patients. More than 300 infants had died in the past five months in the city's G. B. Children Hospital.

Infants’ death in Kashmir: Azad visits Srinagar hospital