13 Newborn Deaths, One Hospital, Same Day

Yeah, you read that headline correctly. Apparently that unlucky number of recently born babies died in the same day at a hospital in Turkey and officials there are attempting to investigate the cause.

BBC.com reports that all the children were premature and that an infection may have been at least a partial cause. But here's the part of the story that shocked me.

A doctor at the hospital said that seeing 13 deaths in a 24-hour period was unusual because "under normal conditions, we lose five or six babies in three days and less than 20 in a month." Um, what? That's 1.6 to 2 babies per day, and that's considered normal? Granted, the infant mortality rate in Turkey is much higher than it is in the U.S. and Australia, but when you break down the numbers to that level, the impact of those losses really hits home.

It's unfortunate that even at a hospital, those infants couldn't be saved. Hopefully the cause in this case can be determined definitively and future multiple deaths like these can be prevented.

Image: Todays Zaman