India hospital director suspended after deaths
NEW DELHI — State officials in India have suspended the director of a hospital where an estimated 60 children have died in the past week, including several young patients who died as oxygen supplies ran out Thursday after a billing dispute with a supplier.
Officials in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh have suspended Rajeev Misra, the head of the government-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College hospital in Gorakhpur, where at least 30 children died Thursday night and into Friday after its supply of liquid oxygen was disrupted over an unpaid bill, officials said. A Home Ministry spokesman told the Press Trust of India, citing police reports, that 21 of the deaths were directly linked to a shortage of oxygen.
Witnesses had described a chaotic scene between 11 p.m. Thursday and 2 a.m. Friday as medical practitioners handed out manual resuscitator bags to families in a desperate attempt to save the tiny patients.
“We saw children dying around us,” said the father of one victim, who gave his name only as Vijay. “Obviously, it’s the hospital’s fault. So many children have died because of them. My son was fine until nighttime, then something wrong happened.”
The state’s health minister and hospital officials have denied charges that the deaths were caused by the oxygen bill dispute, and the state’s chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, blamed unsanitary conditions and the spread of the mosquito-borne disease encephalitis, which afflicts many children in India duringthe monsoon season.
Mr. Adityanath told reporters at a hospital visit Sunday that the investigation was ongoing. “We will know whether it was because of an oxygen shortage or due to a lack of proper treatment,” he said. “Those found guilty will not be spared.”
Parents of the victims described feelings of anger and bewilderment over the incident, saying they were struggling with guilt over not being able to save their children.
The deaths provoked widespread outrage and condemnation across the political spectrum and on social media, where a political cartoon spread that showed the babies as little angels hovering in the sky as an Indian government official tries without success to reach them.