Sunil holds his dead baby. Picture by Kumar Basu

Calcutta, April 19: A newborn died in a Barasat hospital today after rats nibbled her left eye and part of her left cheek, her parents have alleged.

Baisakhi Ram, 19, was shocked when doctors handed her the dead baby, born yesterday morning.

Authorities at the Barasat District Hospital in North 24-Parganas claimed that the baby had died soon after birth and had been kept in the morgue when the rats attacked the little corpse.

But Baisakhi, a resident of Barasat, said she had given birth to a healthy baby. “She was alive and nurses told me her condition was good.”

Her husband Sunil, an employee of a small private firm, has lodged a police complaint saying his daughter was taken to the nursery where the rats killed her.

This was the couple’s first child.

“The nurses brought our daughter wrapped in a towel around 9 this morning. We thought she had been brought to be fed,” Sunil said.

“But when they unwrapped the towel, we saw that parts of our child’s face had been gnawed at. There was fresh blood on her face.”

Baisakhi screamed at the sight.

“My child died a painful death because of negligence of the hospital staff,” Sunil sobbed.

The hospital authorities admitted that rats had nibbled at the baby, but not in the nursery.

“It happened in the morgue where the body was kept,” hospital superintendent Ranjan Kumar Majumdar said.

According to sources in the district health department, the baby had died of asphyxia a few hours after her birth.

“We wanted to inform the family right away, but when we saw that only the mother was in the room, we decided to defer the bad news till this morning,” a hospital employee said.

Angry relatives demonstrated outside the hospital in the morning. The child was buried later in the day.

The health department has ordered a probe. “The hospital authorities will conduct the inquiry,” said Sanchita Bakshi, the director of health services.

The hospital has set up a three-member investigation committee. “It will submit a report within a month,” the hospital superintendent said.

Police have ruled out a post-mortem as the hospital has certified the death as normal.

Health department sources said rats plague all state-run hospitals, but there has been no effort to combat the menace.

In February last year, rats had nibbled at the ears and nose at the body of an elderly person in the morgue of Sambhu Nath Pandit Hospital in Calcutta.