Hiralal and Hirakanya Bhanarkar tried to become parents for 10 long years. When finally, they had a baby girl, disaster struck where she was at Bhandara hospital. This is their tragic story of loss.
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00:00At around 2 a.m. on 9th January 2021, a fire broke out in Bhandara Hospital in Vidarbha
00:29Maharashtra. The fire gutted the Sikh Newborn Care Unit, its neonatal department, killing
00:36ten infants.
00:39Hiralal and Hirkanya Bhanarkar lost their three-day-old daughter in that fire. She had
00:44been the heart-warming result of a decade-long battle with infertility. Before this, they
00:50had lost four children to miscarriage and stillbirth.
00:54They agreed to speak to brute journalist Sagar Shah about that night and the many tragedies
00:58that had led them to the wrong place at the wrong time.
01:07This is Utgaon village, in Bhandara district, where the Bhanarkars work as farm labourers.
01:13Utgaon village, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,
01:34Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,
01:39Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,
01:45Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,
01:49Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,
01:53Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,
01:57Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district, Bhandara district,
02:30each loss took on them, the Banarkars wanted a child.
02:33They took out loans and invested the gargantuan sum
02:36of 30,000 rupees in fertility treatment.
02:39At 39 years old, Hirkanya was pregnant for the fifth time.
02:54A nurse following Hirkanya's case told us that given her age,
02:58the pregnancy was risky, life-threatening even.
03:28We tried to convince her to get an abortion and to give birth to a new baby.
03:40But she said, no, we will work hard, but we want a baby.
03:47Hirkanya's pregnancy was rife with complications.
03:50Her cervix had to be sewn shut to prevent another premature birth.
03:54She required complete bed rest, but her situation didn't allow it.
03:59At home, the Banarkars do not have a toilet,
04:02and she had to relieve herself in the fields.
04:05Her stitches tore twice on these long trips,
04:07and the second time, she went into labour two months early.
04:11Luckily, the child survived.
04:24But she required special medical attention as a preterm baby.
04:28And that was accessible at Bhandara Hospital.
04:39Just as the couple thought things were looking up,
04:42disaster struck.
04:59I had to call an ambulance and rush to the hospital.
05:06But when I tried again, I got a call from the nurses,
05:09asking where the baby was being taken.
05:11I told them it was around 6 or 7,
05:14but they told me the baby was being taken away from there.
05:22A spark in one of the newborn department's radiant warmers
05:25is believed to have set off a fire in the hospital.
05:28There was no fire safety system in place.
05:31Nurses managed to save seven babies from the ward
05:33through the windows,
05:34but the Bhanarkar's little girl wasn't one of them.
06:25Between 2010 and 2019, 33 major fires were reported in hospitals in India.
06:44Functional fire safety systems were reported in only 19 of those.
06:48In much of the country,
06:49there is not nearly enough periodic testing of safety protocols
06:53nor training of the staff.
07:18There are usually knee-jerk consequences.
07:21In the Bhanarkar case,
07:22the Maharashtra government suspended one civil surgeon
07:25and two district officials for negligence,
07:27terminated the contracts of three doctors and one nurse,
07:30and transferred an additional surgeon.
07:33Hospital staff protested some of the sackings,
07:35feeling like they had been scapegoated.
07:39One of the suspended nurses participated in the protests.
07:46The state government approved a two-crore rupee plan
08:15to implement a fire safety system,
08:17but these improvements come at much too high a price.
08:21The Bhanarkars had only just started to dream about their child's future
08:25before it was violently snatched away from them.
08:28They cannot afford to pay for any more fertility treatments
08:31and they're terrified of experiencing another loss.
08:45Her health is fragile and Hiralal is not always a supportive presence.
08:57Like many of the men in the village who are idled from the lack of work,
09:01he struggles with drinking issues.
09:16When I think about it, it hurts me the most.
09:24We've been through so much, and it hurts us so much.
09:31If it hadn't hurt us so much,
09:33we would have lived a poor life.
09:36That would have been our happiness.
09:38Our children would have been in our arms.
09:40They would have played in our courtyard,
09:42they would have stayed in our house.
09:44That would have been our blessing.
09:52If we hadn't done this,
09:54if we hadn't taken care of them,
09:56we wouldn't have been able to afford anything.
09:58We wouldn't have been able to afford anything.
10:05The Bhanarkars have received five lakh rupees in compensation
10:09and have been advised on the options they now have to become parents.
10:13But for now, they prefer to heal
10:15and don't plan to try for any more children.
10:18Their story is a gutting reminder
10:20of how people who have little have the most to lose.