Parents Forced To Watch Helplessly As 64 Children And Babies Die At An Indian Hospital As Oxygen Supply Is Suddenly Is Cut Off Over An Unpaid Bill

Medical staff attend to a child at the Gorakhpur hospital where parents blame many deaths on oxygen shortages

●The children died over six days at the hospital in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh ●It has been claimed oxygen supplies were disrupted because bills were not paid ●Angry families have demanded to know how the patients were allowed to die ●Chief state minister Yogi Adityanath, a key ally to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, faces calls to resign 

More than 60 children have died due to lack of oxygen at a hospital in India because suppliers' bills have not been paid, it has been claimed.

Gorakhpur is the hometown of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a key ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi

AFP report continues:

Parents were forced to watch the young patients die on the wards at the hospital in Gorakhpur, in Uttar Pradesh, after a disruption to the oxygen supply.

Now Yogi Adityanath, the chief minister of the state and a key ally to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, faces calls to resign.

Parents have recounted panic and horror as their children suddenly began gasping for air amid an apparent drop in oxygen, and nurses handed out manual pumps to aid their breathing. 

They claim the company that supplies oxygen to the hospital had earlier threatened to stop distribution unless the government paid its long-overdue bill of 6.8million rupees (£80,000). 

At least 64 children died over six days at the hospital, with Indian media reporting that 30 deaths on Thursday and Friday were from a lack of oxygen in the children's wards.

Suppliers' bills had allegedly not been paid, leading to a shortage that saw panicked families using artificial manual breathing bags to help their stricken loved ones.

Local officials have conceded there was a disruption to the oxygen supply at the hospital, but insist the deaths were caused by encephalitis and other illnesses, not a lack of available oxygen.

Adityanath, a firebrand Hindu priest from Modi's conservative nationalist party, vowed to leave no stone unturned as he toured the hospital in his signature saffron robes.

'If the investigation finds any authority guilty of negligence, he will not be spared at any cost,' Adityanath told reporters in Gorakhpur, the city he represented for nearly two decades.

He repeated that the deaths were caused by encephalitis - a mosquito-borne virus that every year ravages poorer, eastern parts of Uttar Pradesh, India's largest state with more than 200 million people.

'I am a poor man who doesn't understand what happens here, but it was clear that day the oxygen wasn't going up. The doctors and other staff here were very worried,' Ram Prasad, sitting by his two-year-old daughter's bedside, told AFP.

'They rushed to my kid too and gave us a manual pumping machine. It was the longest one-and-a-half to two hours of our lives. We spent the night pressing that machine so that nothing happened to our daughter.'

Others described the hospital in total chaos, with helpless parents carrying the lifeless bodies of their children, crying out for help.

'It was very sudden. We didn't know what was happening,' Bechna Devi told AFP beside her three-and-a-half year old daughter Saroj.

'Every hospital staffer around us was in a rush and they simply told us to use that pump machine for our child.'

Gorakhpur's police commissioner Anil Kumar told AFP on Sunday that 11 more children had died at the hospital on Saturday.

'But I reiterate, they were not due to lack of oxygen supply,' he said.

As anger grew, opposition parties and government critics led the charge for Adityanath's resignation.

'The death of innocent children in Gorakhpur is a tragedy of epic proportions,' Sanjay Jha, a spokesman for India's main opposition Congress party, told AFP.

'The fact that it happened in a state-run hospital is a manifestation of pathetic governance. The buck stops with CM Adityanath, as his government has clearly misplaced priorities... He should resign forthwith owning full moral responsibility.'

The hospital's day-by-day breakdown of the death toll showed a jump Thursday when 23 infants died, including 14 babies at its neo-natal unit.

Doctors admitted that the oxygen supply had been disrupted for a couple of hours late Thursday, but said no deaths had occurred at that time.

The head of the hospital was stood down pending an inquiry into the oxygen shortage, which allegedly stemmed from nearly US$100,000 in overdue bills, some dating back to November.

'If there is any pending payment which is yet to be made to any gas supplier, then it should be done immediately,' senior state health official Anita Bhatnagar Jain told the Press Trust of India on Sunday.

'There should be no shortage of oxygen... and adequate stock of oxygen must be maintained.'

Adityanath, who won Uttar Pradesh in a landslide in March for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, ordered a review of oxygen supplies in the state's hospitals and medical colleges.

A father mourns the death of his child outside Baba Raghav Das Hospital in Gorakhpur amid allegations an unpaid bill led to a disruption in oxygen supply

Indian State Suspends Hospital Chief After Deaths Of 60 Children

The head of an Indian hospital where dozens of children died in recent days has been suspended, as officials traded blame over cash shortfalls that led to supplies of medical oxygen being cut.

The government of Uttar Pradesh state, run by India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), suspended the head of the state-run BRD Medical College, Rajeev Misra, late on Saturday and ordered an investigation.

Indian media have said the deaths of 60 children, 34 infants among them, were caused in part by oxygen shortages after a private supplier cut the supply over unpaid bills.

Hospital officials deny lack of oxygen caused the deaths, saying alternative supplies were found, and blamed many of the deaths instead on encephalitis and unspecified issues related to delivery of the infants.

On Sunday, J.P. Nadda, health minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, visited the hospital in the town of Gorakhpur, 800 km (507 miles) east of New Delhi, accompanied by the state's chief minister, Yogi Adityanath.

After the visit, the chief minister urged patience until the investigation was complete.

"We will know - whether it was because of an oxygen shortage or due to a lack of proper treatment," Adityanath told reporters. "Those found guilty will not be spared."

Nadda said a team of doctors from New Delhi was working with the local authorities and the federal government was ready to send more assistance. He said Modi was also monitoring the developments.

The issue of the unpaid bills for oxygen supply has become a flashpoint in relations between the hospital and the state government, after the suspended hospital chief on Saturday accused state officials of not answering his requests for money.

"I wrote at least three letters," Misra told television reporters on Saturday, adding that he had flagged the issue in video conference discussions.

Reuters was unable to immediately contact Misra for comment.

Adityanath, who had visited the hospital on Aug. 9, said no issue of unpaid bills was brought to his attention and all requests for funds were met promptly.

PRESSURE ON BJP

Opposition parties have stepped up the pressure on the state government, demanding the resignations of Adityanath and the state health minister.

"This government is a murderer," said Raj Babbar, head of the opposition Congress party in Uttar Pradesh.

Uttar Pradesh is India's most populous and politically-prized state, where the BJP's thumping victory has strengthened Modi's claim to a second term in 2019.

Gorakhpur, a down-at-heel town near the border with Nepal, is Adityanath's political base, which elected him to parliament five times before Modi asked him to lead Uttar Pradesh, after a landslide BJP election victory in March.

A study of government data by nonprofit body Brookings India showing the district has a 26 percent shortage of primary health centres.

Encephalitis outbreaks kill hundreds in India every year, especially during the monsoon season.

India's expenditure on public health is about one percent of GDP, among the world's lowest. In recent years, Modi's government has increased health spending and vowed to make healthcare more affordable.