‘BRD didn’t keep oxygen record, fudged log book’
HEALTHCARE WOES Overwriting on stock book for Aug detected DURING THE PROBE, MEMBERS OF THE PANEL FOUND NO STOCK AND LOG REGISTER OF THE OXYGEN SUPPLY WAS BEING MAINTAINED BEFORE AUGUST
The Baba Raghav Das Medical College administration did not maintain any record of the oxygen supply to the hospital, a probe conducted by Gorakhpur district magistrate-led committee has revealed.
The state government had ordered a magisterial inquiry into the deaths of children on August 12.
During investigation, members of the committee — additional commissioner Sanjay Kumar Singh and chief medical officer Dr Ravindra Kumar — scanned the oxygen supply record of the medical college and found that no stock and log register of the oxygen supply was being maintained before August.
Blaming the in-charge for oxygen supply Dr Satish and chief pharmacist Gajanan Jaiswal for anomalies, the officers said overwriting was detected on the stock and log book of August.
When the additional commissioner directed Dr Satish and Jaiswal to present the stock register since March, they expressed helplessness and produced the stock register of August only.
When asked how the medical college made payments if stock register was not maintained, both of them refused to comment.
The committee found the in-charges did not put their signatures on the stock registers as well. The two officers have submitted their report to the DM who has forwarded it to the state government.
“The BRD Medical College administration did not maintain the record of the procurement of oxygen, supply to the wards and stock available in stores,” said an official at the state medical education department.
“A total of 400 oxygen cylinders are supplied daily to this 950-bed hospital. Only after the death of the children on August 10 the medical college administration started maintaining the stock register of the cylinders,” he said.
The medical college had stopped procuring oxygen from Modi Pharma in March this year and another company, IGL Limited, was asked to supply oxygen.
The college administration gave order to the new company to supply oxygen cylinders without floating tender. Pushpa Sales continued to supply liquid oxygen to the hospital.
“There have been gross irregularities in the payments made to the companies as well,” the additional commissioner said.
Around 3,000 encephalitis patients from seven districts of east Uttar Pradesh as well as Bihar and Nepal visit BRD Medical College for treatment. The college requires annual allocation of ~8 crore for oxygen, medicine and human resource and other health facilities at the encephalitis ward but gets merely ~2 crore.
The physical, medicine and rehabilitation department set up to look after the children disabled with encephalitis was closed for several months due to non-payment of salary.