The attendant has been suspended from Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Hospital and arrested
Highlights
- Sources say the supply to 10 children on ventilator stopped
- Incident happened just days after child deaths in Gorakhpur
- Hospital administration claimed the drunk operator fell asleep
Four babies died on Sunday in a hospital in Chhattisgarh's capital Raipur allegedly because an attendant, drunk on duty, passed out and the oxygen supply stopped for around 30 minutes. The attendant, Ravi Chandra, has been suspended by Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Hospital and arrested.
Just days after the child deaths in Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh
shocked the nation, Chief Minister Raman Singh has ordered an investigation.
The hospital administration said the oxygen pressure dipped because the operator, Ravi Chandra, was heavily drunk and fell asleep. Sources say the supply to 10 children on ventilator stopped, which led to the death of three who were in a critical state. Among them was a child with a heart condition.
When other staff members noticed that the supply had stopped, they reportedly fixed it, saving the other children.
Over 70 children have died in the past two weeks at the biggest government hospital in Gorakhpur - the home base of UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath - of reasons that include encephalitis and shortage of oxygen supply. An inquiry report has blamed two senior doctors for mismanaging the hospital's logs about the supply of oxygen amid questions about massive corruption.
A team of doctors from the central government has, however, backed the Yogi Adityanath government's view that the oxygen shortage did not lead to the death of any child.
The deaths have
exposed the state of hospitals and irregularities that endanger several lives.
Inside the wards of the Gorakhpur hospital, media teams found unhygienic conditions including puddles of water near the intensive care unit or ICU and open medicine bottles.