Paras Hospital Gets Clean Chit: Probe Concludes Deaths Caused By Comorbidities Not Mock Drill

 The committee consisted of three doctors from SN Medical College and an official from the Agra Medical Department according to media reports. 

Agra: Paras Hospital, whose owner was caught on video saying he had cut off the oxygen supply for 5 minutes of Covid patients on April 27, has been given a clean chit after the UP government order probe concluded that the patients died of comorbidities. 

In an earlier statement, the owner, Dr. Arinjay Jain says that he just accessed the oxygen flow with the flow meter.

A four-person inquiry committee had been set up by the Agra district administration to investigate allegations. According to media reports, the committee in their report concluded that the deaths were due to existing comorbidities and that some were already in critical condition so the deaths were not because of the mock drill. 

In an NDTV report, the committee in its report said quoted Dr. Jain, "It is completely untrue that patients died. No mock drill was conducted after cutting off the oxygen supply. Nobody's oxygen supply was cut off and there is no evidence of this. The rumour is misleading, otherwise, there would have been 22 deaths at 7 am on April 26."

Further, the committee's report said that the investigating officer found the hospital was given 149 oxygen cylinders with 20 in reserve on April 25 and 121 cylinders with 15 in reserve on April 26. Dr. Jain told the committee that the oxygen stock was adequate for the patients admitted to the hospital the committee's report said. 

The committee consisted of three doctors from SN Medical College and an official from the Agra Medical Department according to media reports. 

In the video that started this all, "We talked with families of the patients but no one was ready to discharge their patients. So we decided to conduct a mock drill so that we could segregate the critically ill patients. After shutting off the oxygen supply for five minutes, bodies of 22 patients started turning blue," Jain was heard saying. 

On June 8th, in a statement to the media, Agra District Magistrate Prabhu N Singh claimed there was no death due to lack of oxygen on that day the alleged video was recorded. However, he said a probe would be conducted.

"Initially, there was some panic and shortage but we sorted all that out in 48 hours. In this hospital, there have been seven Covid deaths on the 26th and 27th of April. The hospital also has a lot of other ICU beds. There is no truth that 22 people died but we will carry out an inquiry," Singh said in a statement.

The Agra district administration had ordered to seal the Shri Paras Hospital to carry out an investigation in the purported viral video.