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Cracking the whip following the death of 30 children owing to alleged shortage of oxygen, Uttar Pradesh government on Saturday suspended the principal of BRD Medical College, Gorakhpur even as it denied that lack of oxygen supply was the reason behind the deaths.

The opposition parties launched a scathing attack on chief minister Yogi Adityanath and demanded his resignation along with the health minister. Adityanath on Saturday said that squalor was responsible for the deaths in the medical college.

Seemingly on the back foot, state health minister Siddharth Nath Singh, who visited the medical college hospital with the minister for medical education Ashutosh Tandon, however, admitted that the hospital had run out of oxygen for two hours on the night of Thursday.

The minister sought to downplay the deaths by furnishing statistics of casualty in the hospital during the month of August in previous years and said that in comparison fewer deaths had taken place in August this year.

’’A majority of patients who are admitted to the BRD medical college hospital are in the last stage and therefore the casualty figure remains always high here...the annual average casualty is around 17-18 per day here,’’ he said.

Singh said that on Thursday evening the meter showing availability of liquid oxygen started beeping indicating low supply following which cylinders were used. ’’AMBU (Artificial Manual Breathing Unit) bags were used to supply oxygen to the patients after cylinders too ran out of supply,’’ he added.

He admitted that the oxygen supplying company had stopped supply following non-payment of bills. ’’Chief minister Yogi Adityanath was not informed about this matter when he had visited the hospital on Wednesday,’’ he said.

Singh said a high level committee, to be headed by the state chief secretary, had been formed to probe the matter. ’’Action will be taken on the basis of report of the committee,’’ he added.

Tandon said that the principal of the medical college Dr. R.K.Mishra had been suspended on charges of laxity. He said that the government had made part payment of the bills of the company but there was some delay in the process.

30 children, mostly new born, had died allegedly owing to shortage of oxygen at the hospital in a period of 36-hours between Thursday and Friday.

30 children die in 5 days at Gorakhpur hospital; UP government denies deaths due to oxygen supply cut

As many as 30 children lost their lives due to encephalitis in last 48 hours at Gorakhpur’s BRD Hospital, reported ANI today. The children died allegedly after oxygen supply was cut.

As many as 30 children lost their lives due to encephalitis in last 48 hours at Gorakhpur’s BRD Hospital, reported ANI today. The children died allegedly after oxygen supply was cut, TV reports said. However, the UP government has denied that deaths happened due to oxygen supply cut. Gorakhpur is Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath’s former Parliamentary constituency. Earlier, on August 9, UP Chief Minister had gone to the hospital for inspection. According to ABP News, the hospital had to pay of Rs 66 Lakh to a company. But as the cost was not paid, the oxygen supply was allegedly stopped, resulting in the tragic incident.

Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi said he is deeply pained. Rahul held BJP government responsible for the tragic incident and demanded action.

Congress President Sonia Gandhi expresses her deep shock at the tragic incident and said she was pained beyond words by the tragedy. She said that her heart goes out to the families of the innocent children who fell prey to “gross negligence and incorrigible misconduct on the part of the authorities,” as per IANS.

Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad and UP Congress President Raj Babbar to visit Baba Raghav Das Medical College and Hospital in Gorakhpur tomorrow, ANI reports.

UP government denies reports that children died due to oxygen supply cut.

Gorakhpur District Magistrate Rajeev Rautela confirmed the death of children in the last 48 hours at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College. However, he didn’t confirm the reason. “Total 30 deaths in last 48 hours,” he told ANI. According to ANI, Rautela said, “Supply of liquid oxygen was disrupted yesterday due to pending payment.” He has requested suppliers not to disrupt supply. A total number of 60 deaths have occurred in the past 5 days at, the report added.

According to ANI report, UP medical education minister, Ashutosh Tondon said,” No deaths due to lack of oxygen supply and 7 people have died today.” He added,”District Magistrate has ordered a magisterial inquiry into the incident, report will be out in 24 hrs.” Tondon further said,”3 deaths happened in Neonatal ICU,2 due to acute encephalitis syndrome (AES) and 2 due to Non-AES today,” reported ANI.

Earlier in May 2017, as per PTI report, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had launched a campaign to eradicate the deadly encephalitis disease that claims the lives of hundreds of children every year in Uttar Pradesh. He stressed on awareness and public participation for the success of the campaign that has been rolled out in 38 districts in the worst-affected eastern region of the state.

“We eradicated diseases like polio and filaria and now encephalitis is our target,” he said after launching the campaign here. Some 40,000 children have died of the disease in the past four decades in the region. “Today’s campaign has been started with the aim of eradicating encephalitis of all kinds — Japanese Encephalitis (JE) and Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES)– and making the state encephalitis-free in the coming few years,” he said.

The chief minister said that though the programme was on all over the country with the blessings of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it is taken up with special vigour in the state where more than 38 districts have been hit by the killer disease. “Besides awareness (about the disease), people’s participation is essential (to overcome the challenge) and we will make an appeal to common people to pay importance to hygiene and consume only clean drinking water,” he said.