Another 28 Calcutta babies die

Twenty-eight babies have died from blood poisoning at Calcutta's B. C. Roy Memorial Children's Hospital less than a week after the government cleared it of responsibility in the deaths of another 30 children earlier this month.

Eight of the babies died last Wednesday - the day the hospital was cleared by West Bengal authorities. Two died on Thursday, four on Friday, and seven each on Saturday and Sunday.

Hospital officials said the latest deaths were due to blood-poisoning - septicaemia.

The opposition Trinamul Congress Party's leader, Pankaj Banerjee, said: 'Death still haunts the children's hospital proving that the investigation ordered by the state government with so much fanfare was a political stunt to deceive the victims' parents and the public at large.'

Thirty children died at the hospital between September 1 and 4 after it was said to have run out of oxygen supplies. But Health Minister Suryakanta Mishra said an investigation found there was no shortage, no 'system failure' as critics alleged, and that there was no negligence on the part of the staff. He said the children died of natural causes.

But Mr Mishra has since transferred the hospital's superintendent, Anup Mondal, to a desk job at the Health Ministry, after he told journalists the children, who had been suffering from respiratory problems, died due to a shortage of oxygen.