A 12-day-old premature infant being nursed in the neonatal intensive care unit of the Government Kasturba Gandhi Maternity Hospital in Chennai died in August 2012. Her father was informed of the death at 5.45 p.m. He saw the body and found it whole, but left it in the hospital while he made arrangements for the funeral. He returned next morning to collect the body. He was shocked to find the face disfigured. His family, and the parents of some other children in the hospital, alleged that the face had been gnawed by rats. The hospital authorities denied this and said the child died of septicaemia, and the skin could have been discoloured postmortem by bacteria. An autopsy was done, but we heard nothing further of the cause of the changes seen.
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