Odisha health minister resigns over Sum hospital blaze

Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak was under pressure to quit following a series of health related incidents in the state recently

Odisha health minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak today resigned from his post in connection with the death of 25 patients in a devastating fire in Sum hospital, privately owned clinical establishment in the city.

"Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak has resigned from his post as health minister. He has resigned on moral grounds. I have accepted his letter of resignation and sent it to the governor", chief minister Naveen Patnaik told media persons.

Nayak was under pressure to quit following a series of health related incidents in the state recently, in addition to the killer blaze in Sum hospital, that included death of 19 children due to malnutrition at Nagada, a tribal village in Jajpur district and death of 62 people in Japanese Encephalitis in Malkanagiri district in south Odisha.

The demand for his resignation reached a crescendo when it was found out that the Director Medical Education and Training (DMET) under his department had renewed the licence of Sum hospital in April this year even as the hospital did not have the requisite fire safety certificate. Besides, the adversaries had hinted at a nexus alleging that his wife was an employee of an education institute run by the owners of Sum hospital.

Meanwhile, the police have arrested five persons in connection with the fire accident at Sum hospital, including the owner of the institute Manoj Nayak and its superintendent Pusparaj Samantasinghar. The state government has instituted two probes, one by revenue divisional commissioner (central zone) and other by three member panel led by DMET into the incident.

While 19 patients had died in the hospital fire on the day of the incident, six more patients who were shifted to other hospitals in the city had succumbed later. The fire, caused by a short circuit, had completely gutted the medicine ICU and dialysis unit of the hospital. Though the patients in those units were shifted with the help of the hospital staff, attendants and volunteers, most of them died after being suffocated by the thick veil of smoke that followed the fire.

The director general of police, fire services, said, the fire personnel were informed about the incident 45 minutes late. He also alleged that though the hospital authorities had been advised to take certain precautionary measures in 2013, nothing had been done in that regard. He said, the fire services department did not have information about other hospitals which were operating in the state without proper fire safety measures and sought the help of the DMET in this regard.

---EOM----