Deaths due to comorbidities not mock drill: Panel gives clean chit to Paras Hospital, Agra
Agra: In a major relief to Paras Hospital, Agra, the Government probe panel has given a clean chit to the facility that was sealed after an alleged mock drill incident surfaced, wherein, the owner of the hospital is seen in a purported video talking about cutting off oxygen supply of Covid-19 patients for five minutes to find out "who will die"
However, the government inquiry found the hospital guilty of spreading fake information when the Covid-19 wave was at its peak.
Medical Dialogues team had earlier reported that Uttar Pradesh Government had cancelled the license of Shri Paras Hospital and sealed the facility after a video of its owner went viral in which he is purportedly talking of "mock drill" and admitting that he had on April 26 got the oxygen supply of critical patients stopped for five minutes as an "experiment to know who all are going to survive". At one point in the video, he was seen saying that 22 patients "turned blue" and gasped for breath when their oxygen supply was interrupted.
However, Dr. Arinjay Jain, the owner of Agra's Paras Hospital, who was at the centre of a controversy, had said that news reports of 22 deaths were baseless and he was ready to cooperate with any investigation. Following which the District Magistrate of Agra Prabhu N Singh and the Uttar Pradesh Health Department initiated a probe into the matter.
Also Read: UP: Paras Hospital Sealed After Viral Video Shows Owner Claiming He Cut Oxygen Supply In Mock Drill
A government committee was set up to probe the incident. The probe found that 10 complaints and memorandums from three social organisations had been submitted against the hospital which merited setting up of the death audit.
The panel comprising a four-member death audit committee and two investigating officers, constituted by the Agra district administration, concluded that the hospital neither conducted any such 'mock drill' over oxygen supply nor did 22 people die on that day.
As per various media accounts, after a thorough probe, the investigating officers found that in total, 16 patients died at the hospital between 26 and 27 April. Among the deceased, seven were Covid-positive, seven were Covid suspected cases and two were Covid-negative. It was also seen that the deaths were caused "due to the severe stage of their disease and other comorbidities" and not due to lack of oxygen supply by the hospital administration.
He added that the video, which he believed was recorded at around 5-6 pm on 28 April, was published to create a "criminal conspiracy sensation".
However, the report stated that the counter allegation by the owner of the hospital will be probed separately by the police along with the role of a media person in the case.
The police will now reportedly make a detailed investigation into the origin of the video, the people present in it and the reason behind not making the whole video public at once. The committee will also listen to the whole video once it is found.
