Clean chit to Agra hosp:Probe on, says admn; parties gear up for protest

Agra Even as political parties gear up for protest against the district administration’s clean chit to the Sri Paras Hospital in the ‘mock drill’ incident, the district administration too is making an attempt to come clear on the issue, saying police investigation is continuing in the matter. Even new complaints would be investigated by the New Agra police where cases under Epidemic Act and Indian Penal Code are lodged against the hospital.

To note, the hospital was in news earlier this month after a video went viral wherein owner of the hospital was found allegedly claiming that a mock drill was conducted at the hospital by stopping oxygen supply for 5 minutes on the morning of April 26 and 22 of the patients were ‘eliminated’.

The Samajwadi Party is writing to its top leaders about the matter. “We are writing to the national leadership of party, apprising them about this ‘mock drill’ episode at Paras Hospital and will ask for some panel to be sent to Agra. We will wait for instructions from party leadership before moving ahead in this matter,” said Wajid Nisar, SP city unit president.

The Congress too has planned a protest on Monday.

“The Congress is not satisfied by the manner in which the district administration has given a clean chit to Sri Paras Hospital and to register protest, the party will hand over a memorandum to the district magistrate on Monday,” said Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) member Dr Madhurima Sharma.

In view of such dissent, the district administration is on the back foot and district magistrate Prabhu N Singh has clarified that complaints of relatives of 10 patients along with death audit report has been sent to New Agra police station. Police would go through them and take appropriate action.

“The hospital has been sealed and its license suspended. The matter is pending before the chief medical officer for further action regarding license. Cases have been registered and are pending against owner Dr Arinjay Jain under Epidemic Act and relevant sections of IPC. The matter is under investigation and soon charge-sheet will be sent to the court,” claimed Singh.

However, he said allegations of 22 deaths because of mock drill were found baseless and wrong as no such incident took place at Sri Paras Hospital.

“Oxygen supply in hospital was found to be adequate despite critical shortage,” said the DM, adding that contents of the video were being investigated by police.