Uttar Pradesh / 16 deaths not related to mock drill of shutting oxygen supply at UP hospital: Panel

Agra: An under-fire hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Agra has been given a clean chit by a panel in connection with the deaths of 22 COVID-19 patients allegedly due to shutting down of oxygen supply during a "mock drill".

The panel said it has found no evidence of oxygen supply cut off on the said day and stressed that 16 people who died in the hospital had either co-morbidities or some other issues.

However, it found that the hospital administration had misled patients on grounds of lack of oxygen and discharged them.

Uttar Pradesh's Death Audit Committee report stated that Police will take necessary action against the said hospital for violation of Epidemic Diseases Act protocols.

Back on June 8, the Uttar Pradesh health department initiated an investigation after a video purportedly showed the owner of Paras Hospital in Agra admitting that he had on April 26 got the oxygen supply of critical patients stopped for five minutes as an "experiment to know who all are going to survive."

After conducting a successful inquiry into the incident, the Death Audit Committee said, "It is not at all true that 22 patients died after oxygen supply was cut off for a mock drill. No one's oxygen was cut off for a drill nor is there any proof of it. It's misleading information, or else 22 people would have died on April 26."

The committee in its report said the said hospital was provided with 149 cylinders with 20 in reserve on April 25 and 121 cylinders with 15 in reserve on April 26, which was sufficient for the patients.

"Besides, attendants of some patients had also arranged oxygen from their end...On the basis of symptoms of hypoxia and oxygen saturation levels, a bedside analysis was conducted on every patient. It was found that out of the admitted critical patients, 22 were severely critical. Out of 16 dead, 14 had comorbidities and two didn't," the report stated.

"It has been proved that hospital administration misled patients on grounds of lack of oxygen and discharged them. This is against the Epidemic Diseases Act protocols. Police to take necessary action in this regard," the Committee added in its report," the report added.

On June 9, the Agra administration had sealed the private hospital and initiated a probe into the matter.

Dr Arinjay Jain, the owner of Agra's Paras Hospital, who is at the centre of a controversy, had said that news reports of 22 deaths are baseless and he is ready to cooperate with any investigation.

Agra District Magistrate Prabhu N Singh had earlier informed that the video was of April which went viral on June 7.

"Agra is a small city. There would an outcry if 22 patients die at a hospital. No patients died due to oxygen shortage that day," Singh had said.