Hospital authorities say the children are always in a critical condition when they are admitted

The infants were all in the neo-natal unit of the paediatrics department at King George's Medical College hospital and are reported to have died over the last two days.

Some parents have said the children died because of a shortage of oxygen, but the hospital administration has denied the allegation.

On average, eight new cases are admitted to the ward every day.

Overcrowding

Although the ward has only 16 sixteen beds, 42 children are currently undergoing treatment there.

Parents in the overcrowded ward complained there had been an acute shortage of oxygen gas cylinders for several days.

The doctor in-charge of the neo-natal ward, Professor Dr GK Malik, said that on an average, eight large oxygen cylinders are required every day to run ventilators.

But the hospital administration provides only two to four and at times there are none.

But Dr Malik said children are given oxygen from small cylinders when there is a shortage.

According to the doctor, ventilators were closed for about 10 hours on Saturday night due to the shortage of larger cylinders.

However, he insisted that children continued getting oxygen from small ones.

He said the cause of death could not be a lack of oxygen, adding that all children who were brought to the ward were already in critical condition and three or four of them died every day anyway.

It is widely believed by local health activists that media coverage of infant deaths led the hospital administration to set up a panel of three senior doctors to conduct an inquiry.

An official spokesman said the panel will submit its report on Wednesday.

The hospital management board will take appropriate decisions after the report is submitted.