UP govt orders probe into ‘mock oxygen drill’
THE UP GOVT HAS ORDERED A PROBE AFTER A VIDEO EMERGED OF PARAS HOSPITAL’S OWNER ALLEGEDLY ADMITTING TO STOPPING OXYGEN SUPPLY ON APRIL 27
AGRA: The Uttar Pradesh government on Tuesday ordered an inquiry after a video clip surfaced in which the owner of privately-run Paras Hospital in Agra is purportedly heard saying that he conducted a “mock drill” in which oxygen supply was cut off for Covid patients for five minutes.
The state health department has ordered that the hospital be sealed, which it said will be completed after shifting the 55 patients who are currently admitted there. The hospital’s owner, Dr Arinjay Jain, has denied the mock drill.
Uttar Pradesh health and family welfare minister Jai Pratap Singh said, “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.”
In the video which went viral on social media on Monday, Dr Jain allegedly said that oxygen supply was stopped for five minutes on April 27 as part of a mock drill. He is also heard saying that bodies of some patients started turning blue after the oxygen supply was cut off, amid allegations that 22 patients died subsequently.
He said that he was informed in the last week of April that there was no oxygen which could be supplied to the hospital.
“I was shocked to know about the shortage of supply as there were 96 patients admitted in my hospital. I was told by the supplier that even the chief minister
could not arrange oxygen, such was the shortage. I wrote a letter alerting the patients and their caregivers and informing them that oxygen was available for a limited period, thus they (patients) should get oxygen arranged or shift to another hospital as discharging them was the only way left. All those admitted refused to shift as there were no beds available in the city,” the hospital owner allegedly said in the video.
“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 about this. Twenty-two patients were ‘sorted out’ as they turned blue and were gasping without oxygen,” he said.
Agra district magistrate Prabhu N Singh has ordered that a case be registered under the Epidemic Disease Act against the doctor.
However, the district magistrate said no deaths took place at the hospital because of scarcity of oxygen and the hospital was supplied adequate oxygen from April 25 to 27, the period mentioned in the video recorded on April 28.
Agra chief medical officer (CMO) Dr RC Pandey said he has ordered a probe by two additional chief medical officers (CMO) into the incident at Paras Hospital. They have been asked to submit their report within two days, he said.
Earlier, Paras Hospital was sealed for three months last year and it was not allowed to admit patients after it was found to be a super-spreader during the first wave of Covid-19 after it allegedly admitted patients without authorisation. A case was then registered against Dr Jain and the hospital manager. However, the same hospital was designated as a Covid-19 hospital when the second wave of the virus in April.
When contacted, Dr Jain denied conducting a mock drill. He also denied the death of 22 patients due to oxygen supply being stopped. He, however, admitted that it was he who was narrating facts in the video clip.
“There was an oxygen shortage and we were asked for judicious and rational use of limited oxygen in the third week of April. We thus thought of categorising patients as to how many of 96 patients admitted required high flow and how many could survive on low flow of oxygen so as to know their dependency on oxygen,” he said in a clarification issued on Tuesday.
“There was no mock drill as such, nor any supply of oxygen was stopped for patients. The 22 sorted out were those who had high dependency on oxygen and oxygen supply to them could not be compromised,” said Dr Jain, adding that “sorting out” referred to categorisation of patients on basis of their dependency on oxygen.
“There was no occasion for 22 deaths in my hospital and only three died on April 26 and four died on April 27. Their death audit has been conducted at the office of the chief medical officer,” Dr Jain said.
The district magistrate, too, denied that 22 deaths occurred in a single day in the last week of April at Paras Hospital. “We had supplied 149 oxygen cylinders to Paras Hospital on April 25; 121 cylinders on April 26; 117 cylinders on April 27 and 20 cylinders were there as back-up. The hospital had no shortage of oxygen and no deaths took place because of scarcity of oxygen. We have asked Agra CMO to again send the team which conducts death audit to re-assess the deaths,” Singh said.