Gorakhpur's main state-run hospital withheld every bit of information from parents of infants who died due to shortage of oxygen earlier this month, an India Today investigation has found.

There was a total lack of transparency, no accountability and miscommunication at the city's BRD Medical College and Hospital where 34 infants died one after another on the intervening night of August 10-11, the investigation has discovered.

Overall, a total of 64 babies, many of them encephalitis patients, died at the hospital in Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's hometown from August 7 to the noon of August 11.

Most deaths - 34 - were reported in a matter of hours between August 10 and 11. "It's a heinous crime if deaths happen because of oxygen shortage," Adityanath had remarked in the aftermath of the tragedy. "It will be a service to humanity, if we present the right facts."

India Today's undercover investigation has unearthed shocking facts.

The probe found how parents were kept in the dark as the infants died at the BRD hospital on the killer night.

NURSES GAVE PARENTS MANUAL AIR BAGS TO PUMP OXYGEN

The parents had little clue about the imminent disaster when nurses unhooked the ventilators and handed manual air bags to the parents to pump oxygen into their children.

India Today's investigative team reached out to Balwant Gupta, the man in-charge of oxygen supplies at BRD on the fateful night on August 10 and 11.

Gupta said, "We had 52 oxygen cylinders. When piped air supplies dropped at 7.30 pm, some other staff replaced them with back-up cylinders. "When I took over (the shift), the entire stock was exhausted by 11.30 pm."

Gupta informed all the staff on duty that the hospital would run out of all oxygen cylinders in a couple of hours. They were told to prepare self-inflating bags for emergency.

But no one shared information about the crisis with the parents. "I don't know what would have happened, if I had disclosed this to the patients (attendants/parents)," he admitted.

Anxious parents, Gupta said, pumped air from the hand-operated device for the next two hours till a new lot of oxygen cylinders arrived.

"The vehicle carrying the oxygen cylinders was running late. It came in at 1.22 am (August 11) and the supply of oxygen resumed at 1.30 am," he recounted.

'INADEQUATE OXYGEN SUPPLY CAUSED DEATHS'

When our reported asked what caused the deaths, Gupta replied, "Inadequate oxygen supply. What else? Supplies should have been adequate. They weren't and that's why patients suffered."

A government inquiry has indicted the then BRD principal Rajeev Mishra, chief anaesthetist Satish Kumar and chief pharmacist Gajanan Jaiswal for the crisis.

Liquid-oxygen vendor Pushpa Sales has also been held responsible for disrupting deliveries over payment issues since August 4.

Top hospital doctors not only sat over oxygen shortage for almost a week, they didn't even respond to SOS calls for hours when the situation demanded, the investigation found.

"The Superintendent-in-Chief called back only in the morning, asking what happened. He said he would come in at 9 am and would hold a meeting with the people concerned," Gupta disclosed.

When our reporter asked Gupta when did he call the superintendent-in-chief, he said, "I called him in the night itself. The call went unanswered. He called back at 7 am."

According to V.K. Chaurasia, spokesman of the BRD Medical College and Hospital, duty staff hustled parents away from the wards when children began to die that night.

"All the parents were moved out so that they didn't come to know their children had died," he confessed. "Parents were moved out. When Dr Kafeel (Khan) arrived, some other doctors were called in to discuss the next course of action. Only then did they start releasing the bodies of (the dead) babies."

But that's not all.

VARIOUS PROTOCOLS ALSO VIOLATED

India Today's investigation found out gross violation of various protocols - from tendering to the procurement of oxygen supplies.

Documents accessed by India Today show the hospital outsourced cylinders from a plant as far as 350 km away - from Imperial Gases Limited in Allahabad.

What is worse, the investigation found that the company could instead have delivered industrial oxygen to the Gorakhpur hospital.

"The deal was signed by the principal himself. He instructed me to carry out his orders. I did inform him (about industrial supplies). But he ignored," insisted Gajanan, the hospital's head pharmacist, who is now under investigation.

Dr A.K. Srivastava, the then chief medical superintendent, directed India Today's team to the exact location of the unit that supplied oxygen cylinders to BRD.

"It (Imperial Gases) has a depot in Faizabad, from where it was delivering supplies to many hospitals", he said.

At Faizabad, the plant's manager confirmed that the unit only produced factory oxygen and not medical.

"See, we cannot produce medical oxygen here. We are not licensed to produce medical oxygen. It involves a lot of formalities", said S.K. Verma, Manager of Imperial Gases' factory in Faizabad. "We keep no stock of it either. We only store industrial (oxygen) for supplies," he added.

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