By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
When more than 23 children lost their lives in Gorakhpur based Baba Raghav Das Government Medical College in August last year, many believed that the government would take necessary steps to prevent such events in the future.
But it seems that the administration has learnt no lessons from the previous incident. In the first three months of 2018, more than 500 children, neonates, and infants have been declared dead at the BRD Medical College.
This number was revealed by sources at the Medical College, as College authorities and the administration have stopped providing death figures for the past several months. When contacted, authorities refused to agree or disagree with the numbers.
According to the latest numbers, about 330 children lost their lives in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) until March 31. Moreover, about 175 kids were declared dead in Pediatric ICU and about 33 kids dead in the encephalitis ward between January 1 and March 31.
The Medical College saw a staggeringly high number of deaths during last year, especially during the night between August 10 and 11. A critical shortage of oxygen that night caused the deaths of 23 children in just one night, raising the death toll to more than 70 in that single week. However, state government and investigative agencies refuted the claim that there were deaths due to non-availability of oxygen in the hospital. Siddharth Nath Singh, the state health minister, went on to say, “August mein to bacche marte hi hain“, a statement which created enough controversy at the moment.
A comparison with the previous death records of BRD Medical College shows that the numbers in the first three months of this year are comparatively less than those of the previous years. But locals claim that the medical college is not equipped with the facilities to avoid such deaths, and as the monsoon — the season of encephalitis breakout — is near, the toll is likely to increase.
In the first three months of 2017, the BRD Medical College recorded 216 deaths in PICU, 401 deaths in NICU and 32 deaths from encephalitis. Until September 2, 1317 children were officially declared dead at the Medical College.
The BRD Medical College is the single largest government aided facility in Gorakhpur which also supports nearby areas like Maharajganj, Deoria, Kushinagar, Basti, Siddharthnagar, Sant Kabirnagar, Ballia, some areas of Bihar like Gopalganj and Siwan, and border areas of neighboring country Nepal.
The BRD Medical College has stopped providing the official number of dead children. Earlier, it used to give out the numbers in press releases to media houses. Authorities told local media in September 2017 that the numbers can be accessed only from the medical college Principal’s office. But when media reached the Principal’s office, they were told to them that the District Information Office will provide the numbers. “Thus, they kept us waiting but never gave us the numbers,” said a local journalist from Amar Ujala.
After the incident of August 2017, there was a total media blackout in BRD Medical College. Authorities have told, albeit unofficially, the staff of the Medical College to not talk to the media on any issue. When TwoCircles.net tried to reach out to college staff and doctors, they refused to talk. However, Dr Ganesh Kumar, the Principal at medical college talked with TwoCircles.net after several tries.
Kumar said, “(The) Hospital or Medical College was never giving the number of deaths…media houses used to grab it from information office and publish.” Kumar’s language was affirmative to the fact that no such information is being provided now. He refused to the fact that college does not provide numbers anymore but said, “Journalists started combining all the numbers and making a horrifying picture of the medical college. At least that is not happening.”
Kumar refused to verify the number of the dead children in the first three months of 2018, and said, “This is the mistake people have been doing…why just count and combine all death figures?”
However, Kumar accepted the claim that BRD Medical College does not have necessary resources to handle the inflow of patients to the hospital. He said, “We are low in the number of the doctors, teachers, staff members, junior as well as senior residents. And to overcome the gap, authorities have been doing temporary and contractual arrangements. The College and the Hospital need some permanent appointments. I am sure that government is doing something in this regard.”
In the aftermath of the deaths in August last year, the UP government had formed a special task force (STF) which led to the arrests of Dr Kafeel Ahmed Khan, medical college principal Dr Rajiv Mishra, Dr Purnima Shukla, former Anaesthesia Department Head Dr Satish Kumar, ex-Chief Pharmacist Gajanan Jaiswal, Accounts departments clerks, Sudhir Pandey, Udai Sharma, Sanjay Tripathi and owner of Pushpa Sales Pvt Lt Manish Bhandari in September last year.
The accused were charged under various sections of Indian Penal Code pertaining to corruption, embezzlement of funds, private practice and criminal conspiracy.
The arrest of Kafeel Ahmed Khan was much debated as he was the first one who reached the hospital on the night of August 10 and tried to save lives by managing oxygen cylinders from various sources.
Due to a lack of substantial pieces of evidence, STF dropped private practice and corruption charges from Dr Khan in November. However, he is still jailed with non-bailable sections with others, for whom Indian Medical Association (IMA)has raised its voice to release the doctors on bail.
The Supreme Court has, however, granted bail to Manish Bhandari, whose firm Pushpa Sales was responsible for supplying oxygen to BRD Medical College on Monday. The bail applications of others are pending at Allahabad High Court.
Events at the Medical College took a strange turn this year in January, when a mysterious fire broke out in the Principal’s office and records room of the college, and engulfed various important document records including several files related with the Oxygen shortage case. The cause of the fire is still unclear.
Many jailed doctors have accused jail authorities of mistreatment. Dr Rajiv Mishra, former principal of the medical college, has been admitted to Dr Ram Manohar Lohia Institute of Medical Sciences, Lucknow, after complaints of cardiac disorder. Hospital sources have claimed his condition to be serious. Jail authorities, allegedly. did not take Mishra to the hospital even after the court’s order. When his condition went serious, then authorities woke up to provide him treatment.