Uttar Pradesh health department on Tuesday initiated a probe after a video showed the owner of a prominent private hospital in Agra purportedly 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."
In a viral video, the owner of Paras Hospital in Agra could be heard saying: "During an acute shortage of oxygen... the hospital conducted a mock drill. We stopped the oxygen supply for five minutes around 7 am on April 26. Twenty-two patients started gasping for breath and their bodies began turning blue. Then there were remaining 74 patients and we asked their family members to bring their own oxygen cylinders"
When asked about the matter, UP Health Minister Jai Pratap Singh said, "Have received a complaint that there were issues with providing oxygen at Paras Hospital. Inquiry is underway, will let you know once the investigation is completed"
According to Prabhu N Singh, District Magistrate (DM), Agra, at least seven patients including Covid infected died in a private hospital due to alleged oxygen shortage on April 26 and April 27 at Paras hospital.
"There were 22 critical patients admitted in the hospital but have no details of their deaths. We will look into the video that surfaced about their death. the fact is there were four deaths due to Covid that day and three more the next day. There were 97 patients admitted," he said.
"Additional district magistrate (city) of Agra and additional Chief Medical Officer Dr Sharma have been named in the case. We will verify the video and probe accordingly. But reports of 22 deaths is incorrect. No death due to lack of oxygen at the hospital was reported," the District Magistrate added.
He further informed that the district administration has investigated the private conversations on April 28 that took place in their personal chamber, and prima facia suggests that Paras Hospital was provided with 121, 117 and 135 D-type cylinders and as per requirement they were sufficient.
( With inputs from ANI )
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