UP probes if Agra hospital cut oxygen supply on purpose

A VIDEO SHOWED PARAS HOSPITAL OWNER, ARINJAY JAIN, SAYING THAT HE CONDUCTED THE ‘MOCK DRILL’ AND 22 PEOPLE WERE ‘ELIMINATED’ AFTER THEY ‘TURNED BLUE’

AGRA: The Uttar Pradesh government sealed a private hospital in Agra on Tuesday and ordered a probe into allegations that hospital authorities turned off oxygen for five minutes on April 26 to see which patients would survive, and left 22 people gasping for breath.

The allegations are related to a video that surfaced on Monday where Shri Paras Hospital owner, Arinjay Jain, is heard saying that he conducted a “mock drill” at 7am on April 26 during an acute oxygen shortage in the city and 22 people were “eliminated” after they “turned blue”.

Jain denied the allegations on Tuesday and said such an exercise was not done.

“An inquiry has been ordered into the oxygen supply incident at Paras Hospital in Agra. The hospital has been sealed. The inquiry committee has been directed to submit its report to the state government. On the basis of the report, further action will be taken,” said state health minister Jai Pratap Singh.

The video, whose authenticity HT could not independently verify, was shot on April 28, at the height of the second wave in the country.

The video doesn’t show Jain but he is purportedly heard telling a gathering of people that in the last week of April, oxygen stocks had dwindled and he asked patients to shift out because suppliers had given up.

“Then, I thought of conducting a mock drill to find out who would survive and who would die without oxygen. On April 26, at 7am, we stopped the supply of oxygen for five minutes as part of the “mock drill”. No one came to know …twenty-two patients were eliminated, they turned blue and were gasping without oxygen,” he was heard as saying.

On Tuesday, Jain denied the exercise but admitted that it was his voice heard in the video. “...The 22 were those who had high dependency on oxygen and oxygen supply to them could not be compromised.”