The room is comfortably warm — a welcome change from the cold outside. The heat is generated by electronic heaters installed over tiny beds, occupied by 11 infants, only a few days old. But the warmth is a chilling contrast to the fact that not one of them is stirring. They are only just alive, their chests rising and falling in faint rhythmic intervals. Most have few chances of survival. Except for one woman, no other mother can be seen in the ward. A baby marked ‘Sana’ lies on her back, dangerously still. Her head is turned on one side, and like the other babies she has a thin tube of oxygen inserted into her nose. “She was born at seven months,” explains the ward’s staff. “She was born...
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