Suffocating Tragedy

- Vibha Varshney And Kundan Pandey

MORE THAN 9,950 children have died of encephalitis in a single hospital in Gorakhpur in the past 40 years. But the health system continues to be unprepared to deal with the disease. On August 10 this year, a news portal ran a story about shortage of liquid oxygen in the Baba Raghav Das Medical College (BRD), and warned of an impending crisis. Since January, the disease had already claimed 160 lives. But oxygen was not made available and that night 23 children died. Children continued to die, and by August 21, the death toll rose to 260 for the year. Though it was clear that the children died due to lack of oxygen in BRD on August 10-11, the state government denied under-preparedness, even as it suspended the principal of the college and vowed to take action against the supplier.

So was the hospital management aware about the shortage? The journalist who wrote the story, Manoj Kumar Singh, says everyone was aware about the looming crisis and the government is now just passing the buck. It seems Rajiv Mishra, the principal of BRD, reminded the authorities in several letters about sanctioning the pending payment to the supplier. According to media reports, Mishra wrote the first letter on March 22 to senior officials in the state’s health ministry. On August 1, Mishra copied this letter to the Medical Education Minister Ashutosh Tandon. Reports also suggest that the supplier too had informed the college and higher authorities that unless his dues of R68.65 lakh were cleared, the company would stop delivery.