Ex-Perinatal Chief Calls Kuzbass Infant Deaths a 'Catastrophe'

Recently, the Novokuznetsk maternity hospital found itself at the center of a scandal: nine infants died there over several days. Eight more newborns are in critical condition. The official cause is a severe intrauterine infection in the newborns. Valery Bushtyrev, former chief physician of the Rostov Regional Perinatal Center and honored resuscitation-neonatologist, told 161.RU what he thinks about the situation.

According to Bushtyrev, it is very difficult to imagine that nine infants in one maternity hospital actually died from an intrauterine infection, although he does not rule out such a possibility.

‘Intrauterine infection occurs when the mother was very unhealthy during pregnancy or before it. This infection is diagnosed during pregnancy. Children, as a rule, suffer during it. The mother suffers because during pregnancy there is often an exacerbation of various diseases. Therefore, to say without basis that, well, a child is born, and they have an intrauterine infection — that is very difficult.’

Intrauterine infection, says Bushtyrev, is a pathology that the medical community takes seriously. Doctors can diagnose it during pregnancy if the expectant mother is monitored at a women«s clinic. If a woman does not undergo any examinations and the infection is discovered closer to childbirth, it is much harder to correct the situation.

‘It is indeed a serious pathology. One needs to think about it and prevent these problems. As a rule, women«s amniotic fluid is sterile. The fetus, when developing, if there is a serious infection, can simply die intrauterinely.’

16 out of 17 children born over the past month and a half, as stated by the Kemerovo Oblast Ministry of Health, were premature. In such cases, infections can be especially dangerous and lead to death, as the immunity of premature children is significantly lower than that of full-term ones. But this does not explain the mass death of infants.

‘I know many obstetrician-gynecologists and neonatologists in the country. And [Kuzbass] is one of the regions, in my opinion, with qualified specialists. Therefore, for me, of course, it is completely unclear what happened.’

Bushtyrev says that now technology allows for intrauterine surgery via endoscopic means to correct congenital fetal pathologies. Therefore, when nine children in one maternity hospital die from intrauterine infection, it is an emergency.

‘We need to figure it out, because it is a catastrophe, it is a tragedy — for the parents and for medicine in general. I believe that for neonatology, the maternity care service in our country is serious, because our results in the country were very good.’

The tragedy could have also happened because the sanitary-epidemiological regime was not observed, and the children did not receive appropriate care, suggests Bushtyrev.

‘Sufficient funding is needed, medical institutions need to be given due attention. Personnel play a huge role. If there are no personnel, then there will be no appropriate care, no observance of the sanitary-epidemiological regime.’

Residents say that strange deaths in the maternity hospital have occurred before. Law enforcement officers, in addition to the obstetrics department, will examine the work of the entire City Hospital No. 1 in Novokuznetsk — patients have been complaining about it en masse. On January 12, the maternity hospital was temporarily closed. The official reason is exceeding the threshold of respiratory infection incidence. On January 14, Investigative Committee employees detained the chief physician of the hospital and the acting head of the resuscitation and intensive care unit for newborns and premature children.