The prinicipal and doctors of the Baba Raghav Das hospital did not raise the issue of shortage of oxygen cylinders during the August 9 visit of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to the state-run facility, the Uttar Pradesh government said today.
"UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had visited BRD Medical College hospital on July 9 and August 9, and held elaborate discussions with doctors and the principal. The issue of gas supply did not came up and was even not brought to his notice by the doctors and principal," UP Health minister Siddarth Nath Singh told reporters here.
Terming the death of so many childen in a day as "shocking", he said that the UP government was a "sensitive government" and was not trying to play down the report of the death of 23 children in a day (on August 10).
"Information about even a single death should be there," he added.
Giving the statistics of the reported paediatric deaths in the hospital in the last three years in August, Singh said that as per the figures for the month of August, 567 paediatric deaths took place in August 2014 (19 per day), 668 in August 2015 (22 per day) and 587 in August 2016 (19.5 per day).
"The daily annual average of deaths for 2014-2016 is 17- 18 per day in the BRD medical college hospital, he said.
Stressing that patients come to the hospital from neighbouring districts of the state, Bihar and even Nepal, he said, "like any other medical colleges in the country, these patients come in the last or final stages, as the first line of treatment centres are unable to treat them properly. This is a trend which is more or less visible across the country," he said.
Singh also said, "We came to know that between 7.30 pm to 10.05 pm, seven children had died, but there was no lack of supply of the gas. The next death was reported at 5.30 am on August 11".
Accepting that "the supply of gas was disrupted", he said "but no deaths were reported due to it.
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