24 patients including 12 newborn babies have died in a govt hospital in Maharashtra's Nanded in the last 24 hours, Dr Dilip Mhaisekar, director of the state's Medical Education and Research said on Oct 2. The dean of the Shankarrao Chavan Government Hospital said that lack of hospital staff due to transfers and medicine shortage were responsible for the deaths. Media reports quoted him as saying that the hospital is a tertiary-level care centre and patients from far-off places come there since it is the only one in the 70 to 80-km radius. He added that on some days the patient load increases and creates a problem as several staff members have been transferred but their replacements have not been brought in. The dean also said that the hospital is supposed to buy medicines from an institute called Haffkine but that also did not work out and they had procure medicine locally for the patients. Also Watch: 24 patients, half of them newborns, die in Maharashtra hospital in a day