India restores hospital oxygen supply as anger mounts over child deaths
Modi vows to revamp public health care system
GORAKHPUR: Indian health authorities on Monday delivered oxygen to a public hospital where 63 people have died of encephalitis in recent days, nearly half of them children, as it ran out of medical supplies because of unpaid bills, triggering public outrage.
The deaths of the children have again exposed India’s underfunded and poorly managed public health care despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi government’s vows to revamp the system.
Hundreds of people die each year in India of encephalitis, a mosquito-borne disease common during the monsoon season, and no medical official directly linked the recent deaths to a lack of oxygen.
But complaints that the hospital in the eastern city of Gorakhpur did not have enough supplies has stoked anger against the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party which governs Uttar Pradesh state.
“We now have adequate supplies of oxygen cylinders, there was a shortage last week... but I am not in a position to say whether they were the cause behind the deaths,” R.K. Sahai, a senior medical officer in the hospital, said.
Television images of parents emerging from the hospital carrying the bodies of infants and alleging they died because there they didn’t get oxygen have led to a firestorm of criticism of chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a saffronrobed Hindu hard-liner who took office earlier this year.
Bipin Singh said his six-year-old daughter died on Thursday because of lack of oxygen and he had seen six other children die for the same reason.
“My daughter and other children were unable to breathe. We kept telling the nurses that they should call the doctors. The doctors said they have ordered for oxygen cylinders but we never saw them being used.”
Bahadur Nishad, who lost a fouryear-old son suffering from encephalitis, said he was ready to pay for the oxygen cylinders himself.
“They told me there was a shortage of cylinders,” he said and turned his wrath on chief minister Yogi Adityanath whose electoral constituency is Gorakhpur.