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Delhi

Jaipur Golden hosp links O2 crunch to 21 deaths, police insist otherwise

Jaipur Golden hosp links O2 crunch to 21 deaths, police insist otherwise
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New Delhi: The Delhi Police has told a trial court that after scrutiny of several death summaries, it has found that there were no deaths due to lack of oxygen supply of 21 patients at the city's Jaipur Golden Hospital during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic even as the hospital has claimed that there was a shortage of oxygen supply from the supplier which appeared to have a linkage with the casualties reported at the time.

In a response filed by DCP (Rohini) Pranav Tayal, police, after perusing and verifying the hospital's response, has stated: "During the inquiry the CCTVs footage intervening night of 23/24.04.21 the death summaries of deceased persons, who expired on the intervening night of 23/24.4.2021...were obtained from Jaipur Golden Hospital. On scrutiny of death summaries of all deceased persons, it revealed that no death of any patient caused due to shortage of oxygen".

Meanwhile, the three-page-report further stated that as allegations are against doctors and medical staff in the petition, hence the opinion regarding any medical negligence has been sought from the Delhi Medical Council and the same is awaited.

During the police inquiry, a notice under section 91 CrPC was served to Jaipur Golden Hospital for seeking death summaries of all deceased who died on the intervening night of 23 and 24 April, which in response said that at the relevant time, the hospital was starved of oxygen and it is a matter of record that oxygen supplier Inox supplied 3.8 MT on April 22 at 5:30 PM while there was no refill by Inox at scheduled time 5:30 PM on April 23. "This resulted in a crisis situation," the report stated.

"Ever since the afternoon of 23rd April, 2021, they were making frantic calls and sending messages to helpline, the designated Govt. Nodal officers and to call concerned government officials. The telemetry system of Inox also raised the software driven message about critical reserve left in the tank to the concerned officers," the hospital said.

It further claimed that on April 23, the oxygen level became low and the pressure level of oxygen fell down to 41 at 9:30 PM. "21 deaths within a span of 7-8 hours is unusually high number that to spread over different critical care areas. Resultantly, when this situation ensued, there appeared to be a linkage between the unusual high number of deaths and the common factor i.e. deficient oxygen supply," the hospital said in the report.

Meanwhile, the Medical Director of JGH also stated that a committee of four doctors was constituted by GNCT, Delhi, to ascertain the cause of deaths of patients and the committee had opined that the deaths were due to natural reasons and could not be attributed to shortage of oxygen. However, the director said that the hospital was not in a position to comment upon or refute the conclusion drawn by the said committee.

In an earlier hearing, Metropolitan Magistrate Vivek Beniwal had pulled up police for filing a "casual" status report which did not disclose the steps that has been taken by it as per the directions of the court, following which he directed the area DCP himself to file a status report in the matter keeping in mind the sensitivity of the case.

During the hearing on Tuesday, MM Beniwal directed that the report be served to the petitioners' lawyer and posted the matter for arguments on October 8.

The petition, moved on behalf of six family members of the deceased persons, has sought the cognisance of offences related to murder, criminal intimidation, death by negligence, cheating, criminal conspiracy and disappearance of evidence against the management of the hospital and has further asked them to be summoned and put to trial for these offences.

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