Patna: It's a bitter-sweet time for the seven nurses at the Special Newborn Care Unit of the Araria sadar hospital, around 300km northeast of Patna. They have had say goodbye to a baby girl they nursed back from the doors of death, but they are hopeful of a better future for her.

For two months, the Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) was home for Khushi, whose mother abandoned her on the delivery table of the Narpatganj primary health centre.

The whole SNCU team at the Araria sadar hospital took care of the infant, often going beyond the call of duty.

"Khushi has become a part of our family because for the first time our unit took care of a newborn completely," said Trishna Chakraborty, the SNCU in-charge.

"Right from feeding her to cleaning her to giving her medicines while also doing extra shifts for her, all SNCU staff took care of her like a family member. Though we have many other children admitted at our SNCU, Khushi was special for us. Khushi has been handed over for adoption to an agency.

"We only hope that she gets adopted by a good family," said Trishna (26).

Khushi's adoption procedure will be initiated according to govern-ment norms.

According to Trishna, when Khushi was brought to the SNCU on January 4, she weighed just 1.3kg while the normal weight for a baby her age was 3kg.

Khushi was also suffering from hypothermia (low body temperature), and had trouble breathing.

"The SNCU, which has got technical support from Unicef, is specialised to treat such babies. Khushi has now gained weight. She now weighs 2.2kg but she should have now been 6kg. She is still underweight. We have given the diet plan to the agency where she is now. They have been asked to bring her here after every few days," said Trishna.

District programme manager, health, Rehan Ashraf, said saving Khushi was a big challenge for all the workers at the Araria sadar hospital SNCU.

"Everyone was doing extra shifts to take care of the child. I also kept visiting the SNCU to check the condition of Khushi when she was admitted there. We all are hoping she recovers soon, because she continues to be underweight," said Rehan.

Rinku Verma, a trustee of the child development welfare society where Khushi has been kept by the adoption agency, said the adoption process would begin see.

"Soon, we are going to issue advertisement in which we would give some time to Khushi's biological parents to claim for her custody. If they don't turn up, the adoption procedure would be initiated following government norms."