42 fresh deaths in four days at BRD Hospital

Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, August 16

Forty-two fresh deaths have been reported within four days at Gorakhpur’s Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College from August 12 to August 15.

From August 7-11, nearly 60 children had died at the hospital. Holding the state health minister, medical education minister and principal secretary responsible for the “disruption of oxygen supply” to the hospital, the father of one of the 23 children who died on August 10 filed a police complaint.

Rajbhar, a resident of Gopalganj in Bihar, had travelled 125 km for his son’s treatment. He had filed his complaint on August 14, but no FIR has been registered so far. In his complaint, he has blamed Health Minister Siddharth Nath Singh, Medical Education Minister Ashutoh Tandon and Health Principal Secretary Prashant Trivedi for the death of his son. He also alleged that no post-mortem was done after his child’s death.

PIL seeks judicial probe

Two petitions have been filed in the Allahabad High Court on the Gorakhpur deaths.

Demanding a judicial inquiry into the deaths, one petition has alleged that the children died due to shortage of medicines and negligence in treatment.

Filed by Kamlesh Singh and Sunita Sharma, it has made the central and state governments, UP chief secretary, Principal Secretary Health, CMO BRD Medical College as well as the Director of National Vector Borne Disease Control programme as party. It will come up for hearing on August 18. Another PIL claimed that the state government and its agencies had been trying to defend the incidence by negating the facts.