Arman at home in Bamangram on Friday. Picture by Nantu Dey

Raiganj, Nov. 13: Four babies in a health sub-centre near Raiganj have been administered one-and-a-half spoonfuls of an antiseptic instead of Vitamin A, which is given twice a year to prevent night blindness.

The children were admitted to the district hospital on Wednesday after health worker Sumita Saha alerted the doctors that she had committed the mistake of administering Savlon, an antiseptic.

The children — three of them above two years and one a 10-month-old — had started vomiting after going home and had come back to the sub-centre at Bamangram, 15km from here, to complain. Saha then scribbled a note and asked the parents to take the babies to the Raiganj district hospital at the earliest.

“The moment the on-duty medical officer at the emergency unit of the hospital read the note he was alarmed and made arrangements to shift the babies to the paediatric ward. A child specialist was called. I picked up the note the health worker had written and found that she had fed our children an antiseptic, instead of Vitamin A oil,” said Kamraj Jamal, whose son Arman is 10-month-old. The name of another child, Mohammed Nasiruddin, was written in the note signed by Sumita Saha.

Hospital authorities refused to disclose the identity of the remaining two babies whose names were not in the note. “They are from some other village. When the doctors in the emergency realised that those children, too, have been vomiting after being given the vitamin dose at the Bamangram sub-centre, they admitted them,” said Jamal.

Sumita’s note suggests that she had first tried to put it right by giving the children oral re-hydration, which if taken in excess induces vomiting because of its saline nature.

Jamal said all the children were released yesterday but his son had not stopped vomiting and was throwing up whenever he was given solid food. “I have handed over the note of the health worker along with my complaint to the Raiganj police and the chief medical officer of health. The villagers have also decided not to take their children to the health sub-centre if the worker is not transferred,” he said.

The health worker has been showcaused. From 11 this morning, Sumita had been sitting at the health centre alone. No one has come with babies in the past 24 hours, she said. “On Wednesday the health centre was crowded and I committed the error by feeding them the antiseptic instead of the Vitamin A oil. Since the babies were very ill, I referred them to the district hospital,” she said.

It is not clear, however, how Sumita made the mistake since the antiseptic bottle is easily identifiable. Jamal said often parents handed over their children to Sumita who took them inside her cubicle to administer medicines.

According to child specialist Dhiman Pal, if babies ingest anything inedible it becomes equal to any poison. “In this case it was good that the children were brought to the hospital in time and as the health worker had written to the hospital naming the antiseptic, we could carry out proper treatment. They are out of danger now,” Pal, who had attended to the babies, said. He said the children had been given saline water to induce vomiting. Three babies who were above two-years of age had their stomachs washed.

Doctors said antiseptics like Savlon induced vomiting in children. “This leads to dehydration, too much of which may cause renal failure,” a doctor said. Chief medical officer of health Sarathi Bhattacharya admitted that the health worker’s mistake had made the children sick. “I have issued a showcause notice to the health worker concerned,” he said.

Inspector in charge of Raiganj police station Sujit Ghosh said investigation was on. “But we have to depend on health experts like doctors to conduct the probe,” he said.