Gorakhpur hospital had been warned about shortage of oxygen

Sanjay Pandey, Lucknow, DH News Service, Aug 12 2017, 20:09 IST

Pradeernment's claim that lack of oxygen was not behind the death of 30 children at BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur, it has been revealed that the hospital administration had been warned in advance about the impending shortage of the life saving gas.

According to the sources in the BRD medical college, the central oxygen pipeline operators had written a letter to the head of the pediatrics department informing him that liquid oxygen supply was very low and asked him to make necessary arrangements. The copy of the letter was sent to the principal of the college also.

The letter also contained a warning that shortage of oxygen could put the lives of the children, who were on ventilators and in the neonatal unit in grave danger.

Sources said that there was no liquid oxygen at the hospital even on Saturday and cylinders were being used to provide oxygen to the patients.

Even the company, which supplied liquid oxygen to the hospital, had also shot off several letters to the principal, the Gorakhpur district magistrate and other senior government officials of the health department threatening to stop the supply if its bills were not paid.

''The ultimatum was given around 20 days back that supply of oxygen will be stopped unless the pending bills were cleared,'' said a medical college official in Gorakhpur on condition of anonymity.

Though the UP minister for health Siddharth Nath Singh claimed that a part payment was released on August five, the money had not reached the company even by Thursday.

The principal of the medical college Dr. Rajiv Mishra, who had been suspended, rejected the charges of laxity and said that the payment had been made to the company on Friday.

Mishra said that he had already resigned from his post taking moral responsibility for the deaths though he termed them ''natural''.