UP children deaths: Is the Yogi govt trying to cover things up?

It has been over two weeks since 33 children lost their lives in the BRD Medical College and Hospital in Gorakhpur for laxity in maintaining oxygen supply on August 10 and 11 but Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his government are busy in covering up the operation.

The much awaited report of Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar has raised many questions instead of answering them. He ordered filing of FIR and police action after much dilly-dallying. It was filed 24 hours after Chief Secretary had submitted his report to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Kumar had found Principal RK Mishra, his wife Pushpa Mishra and seven others including the supplier of oxygen as guilty but FIR was filed against only five people.

The surprising fact is that no one has been arrested so far and there is no effort from the government to expedite action against the people presumed guilty. The flaws in the report are many and no one is ready to answer them. The biggest flaw is if the government says that children did not die of lack of oxygen, then why has it proposed action against Pushpa Sales Company – the firm which has supplied Oxygen?

Why has action been proposed against Dr Kafil Khan, head of encephalitis department, who had posted a video in his FB account saying that he had pleaded to seniors telling them about depleting oxygen supply, if the cause of death was not lack of oxygen.

If Dr Khan is guilty of private practice, why are the others in hospital spared? “We will take action against all senior doctors who indulged in private practice. We have a list and government is alive to the situation,” Health Minister Sidharthnath Singh said but could not answer as to how many doctors of BRD were into private practice.

If Principal secretary, Medical Education, Anita Bhatnagar Jain was transferred because she overlooked prevailing corruption in Medical Colleges, why was DG (Medical Education) Dr KK Gupta spared?

“There is a cover-up operation. The Yogi government does not want the truth to come out. The enquiries were ordered but these were nothing but an eye wash,” Congress Legislature Party leader Lalu Singh said.

It is surprising that three committees had given their reports and all of them have towed the same line saying that children did not die of lack of oxygen.

An overview of the whole scenario is as follows:

Oxygen supply:

Health Minister Sidharthnath Singh said that there was disruption in oxygen supply but it was not fatal. Seven children died on August 10 between 7 and 10.05 pm when supply was low but when oxygen supply was disrupted between 11.30 pm and 1.30 am, not a child died.

Prashant Trivedy, a senior bureaucrat, said there was some problem in the oxygen pipeline and supply stopped for sometime on the intervening night of August 10/11. “We had enough oxygen cylinders in stock to tide over the crisis,” he had told this reporter.

District Magistrate, Gorakhpur, Rajiv Rautela, who was asked to enquire into the crisis, gave his report which said that “there was disruption in oxygen supply in hospital but there was no senior doctor present in the hospital to tackle that crisis”.

Experts’ Views:

A three-member team of doctors from New Delhi said that interruption of oxygen supply was not the reason of 33 death of children on August 10/11.

The expert team was sent by Federal Health and Family Welfare Ministry to probe the death. The expert team comprised Dr M K Agarwal, Assistant Commissioner, Dr Harish Chelani, Head, Department of Pediatrics Safadarganj Hospital, New Delhi, and Dr Shushma Nangiya, Neo Natal Department HOD, Lady Harding Medical College, New Delhi.

The expert team said that allegation of the death of children due to interruption in oxygen supply was “technically incorrect.

Dr Nangiya said that team has analysed the deaths of children till August 12 in two spans - from August 1 to 6 and from August 7 to 12. Graph of deaths has not increased in both these tenures. She even said 138 deaths were reported last year during this time but this year the number was 134.

Dr Harish Chelani said that circumstances suggest that number of deaths was not unexpectedly high. He said that oxygen is only a support system; its shortage cannot be cause of deaths.

Deaths:

Since August 1 to August 24 – 194 children have died at the hospital. Only 71 of these deaths are reported from encephalitis ward and majority of the casualties is from the neo-natal ward.

In May this year, the government had carried out a massive vaccination programme under which 8,000,000 children up to 15 of age were given vaccine against JE. Dr R.N. Singh, Convener Encephalitis Eradication Campaign, feels because of this vaccination drive, the number of JE cases will be low this year.