An alleged intentional oxygen ‘mock drill’ at Agra took lives of 22 after which a probe was initiated into the hospital owner’s video in which he claimed how hospital shut off oxygen supply resulting into the mishap. While the news of oxygen supply related deaths at hospitals have receded, the new development has sent shockwave across the country.
Details
A harrowing incident regarding lack of oxygen supply at an Agra hospital has sparked controversy. The reports emerging so far alleges that a prominent hospital owner conducted a ‘oxygen mock drill’ which resulted into the lives of 22 people taken away from them.
On 27 April, the owner of a prominent Agra based hospital was caught on video admitting how he shut off the oxygen supply for COVID-19 patients as a ‘mock drill’. The hospital owner, who was not seen in the video, was heard saying how there was a severe oxygen shortage at not only the hospital but across the state of Uttar Pradesh.
Watch video here
Agra, UP: They turned the oxygen off for 5mins and watched people turn blue?? This viral video is under investigation.
22 died in ‘mock oxygen drill’ at Agra hospital on April 26? Probe orderedhttps://t.co/YUX2tlYBD3 pic.twitter.com/LhleGgsMv0
— faizan (@faizan0008) June 8, 2021
“Let’s do ‘mock drill’, we will know who survives & who dies”
In the video, the man, who’s allegedly the owner of the hospital, can be heard saying-
“Even Chief Ministers could not get oxygen, so we were asked to start discharging the patients. Modi Nagar is already dry (of oxygen). I said, fine, let’s do a ‘mock drill’. By that we will know who will survive and who dies. So, we did that.”
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Mock drill conducted at 7 AM, Patients ‘turn blue’
In the alleged mismanagement of epic proportions, the man further continued saying-
“Then we started personally asking the families to be discharged. Some listened, but others didn’t budge and said they would not leave. At 7 AM we conducted the mock oxygen drill. Later we identified about 22 patients. This was all done in 5 minutes. We figured these patients would have died. The patients started turning blue.”
The video was first reported by Livehindustan, a sister subsidiary of Hindustan Times. According to reports, the man that is heard in the video bragging about the horrific mismanagement is the owner of Paras Hospital, Arinjay Jay. This video lasted for across one and a half minutes and was released on April 28.
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“No deaths due to oxygen shortage, probe will be conducted”: Agra District Magistrate
Meanwhile, the Agra DM Prabhu Singh claimed how no deaths due to lack of oxygen were reported on the day the video was released and recorded. The district management although said that there would be a probe conducted.
In his statement, the District Management of Agra said-
“Initially, there was some panic and shortage but we sorted all that out in 48 hours. In this hospital, there have been seven Covid deaths on the 26th and 27th of April. The hospital also has a lot of other ICU beds. There is no truth that 22 people died but we will carry out an inquiry.”
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“Statements misinterpreted”: Hospital Owner Claims after outrage
Meanwhile, after the video was widely circulated on social media, the owner of the hospital spoke to Times of India where he claimed that his statements were misinterpreted. He however agreed that it was his own voice in the video. The hospital owner on the issue said-
“We too had received instructions from the administration for judicious and rational use of oxygen. In the third week of April, we categories our patients into those who were on high flow and those on low flow (of oxygen).”
When asked about the number of patients that died due to the lack of oxygen, Jain said that he did not have “exact numbers”. He said how the hospital had to identify oxygen dependency of patients to ascertain whether or not the patients can survive if there was a genuine shortage of oxygen.
“Mock drills does not mean switching off oxygen”: Paras Hospital owner
“Mock drill means taking stock of the situation before facing an issue, to understand how to work in emergency. We had categorised the patients…We categorised Covid patients to see which patient needs how much oxygen,”
Jain said. Further he also said-
Mock drill does not mean switching off a patient’s oxygen. We did not switch off oxygen. I did not clearly say so in the video.”
