Dr Rajeev Misra suspended head of the Gorakhpur medical college where 30 children died in 48 hours, said he owned responsibility “for the death of innocent children”. However, he contradicted the Yogi Adityanath government that he took too long to seek funds needed to pay for the oxygen supplier.
63 children including several newborns have died in the last five days at Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur, prompting even Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take note of the tragedy and send junior health minister Anupriya Patel to Gorakhpur for a first-hand assessment of the situation.
The government has denied that the deaths were linked to a disruption in the supply of oxygen, insisted that deaths of children in the hospital this year was much lower than previous years due to steps were taken by the administration and ordered the second inquiry by Chief Secretary into the 2014 contract for the supply of oxygen.
At a joint press conference with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh, Medical Education Minister Ashutosh Tandon said the medical college principal, Dr Misra’s request for money had reached the administration only on 4 August and sanction orders were issued the next day. The implication was that the state administration acted promptly once it received the request but it was the hospital that had been sitting on the payments.
Dr Misra, however, told that the government was only referring to his last letter and he had flagged the lack of funds to the health department earlier too.
Dr Misra said he was on sanctioned leave, pointing that hospital staffers had informed him about the shortage and he had, from Rishikesh made arrangements for the supply of cylinders.
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