9-month-old girl's finger crushed at a daycare centre in Gurugram

NEW DELHI: A nine-month-old girl's finger was crushed due to the negligence of a day-care centre's staff in Gurugram and had to be amputated, her parents claimed on Monday.

The incident took place on May 19, says

Nikhil Rastogi

(girl's father), who is going to file a police complaint against the day-care owner.

"We had signed up for

Intellitots Daycare Centre

(IDC) at

Fortis Memorial Institute

(in Gurugram) two months back after having been assured of the hygiene, CCTV monitoring and their commitment to child's well-being. But on Friday (May 19) we faced this traumatic experience. Just half-an-hour after we dropped off our little daughter at the day-care, we received a call from a teacher about an "emergency"," Rastogi told TimesofIndia.com

"We were told that our daughter had hit her left finger," Rastogi added.

When we went to the day-care, to our horror, we saw that our daughter's ring finger had been amputated.

"It means the top half part of the finger has been cut apart. I was told that maid apparently shut the door on my daughter while changing the diaper. And her finger got stuck in bathroom door," Rastogi said

"Can you believe the situation when my nine-month-old is in front of my eyes bleeding? We had a major surgery on May 19 at

Medanta

and will be repeated by another one this Thursday. This painful procedure will be repeated maybe twice every week for six weeks."

He also accused the owner of making excuses when he asked for the CCTV footage of the incident.

"I don't know how but we were told by the day-care owners that the CCTV footage of that particular incident was not available due to some malfunction," he said.

Meanwhile, the management of IDC termed the incident "unfortunate" and assured all help to the parents of the baby.

"We are running day-care centres for past nine years now. We follow all the safety norms prescribed for the centre," IDC founding director

Pooja Goyal

told TimesofIndia.com.

"On that ill-fated day, a very unfortunate accident happened. I can understand the pain the parents are going through. As an immediate step, we took the baby to Medanta, reached out to her parents and even asked for better child specialist for the baby," Goyal said, adding, "We've also offered to bear all the medical expenses of the baby but till now the parents have not responded or asked for it."

She also said the "maid is not unskilled or untrained, she has been with us for past four years."

"Please understand the trauma we all, including the parents and staff, are facing right now. For us all children are our own. The CCTV cameras had some technical error and the issue was already raised in morning on May 19 rest video footage of at least 30 days is available with us," Goyal said.

"We pray and are in direct touch with the parents since the accident happened," she added.