INDIAN HIGH COURT COMPARES OXYGEN SHORTAGE HOSPITAL DEATHS TO ‘GENOCIDE’

Wed 05 May 2021:

The high court in India’s Allahabad district said oxygen shortage deaths in the coronavirus-hit country could be compared to a genocide.

The court observed that “death of Covid patients just for non-supplying of oxygen to the hospitals is a criminal act and not less than a genocide” by those responsible for ensuring the continuous procurement and supply of medical oxygen.

A Bench of Justices Siddhartha Varma and Ajit Kumar asked “how can we let people die in this way” when medical science had advanced so much that heart transplantations and brain surgeries were now a reality.

“We are at pain in observing that death of Covid patients just for non-supply of oxygen to the hospitals is a criminal act and not less than a genocide by those who have been entrusted the task to ensure continuous procurement and supply chain of the liquid medical oxygen,” the High Court of Judicature at Allahabad said as quoted by The Times of India.

The court also mentioned the death of a sitting judge of the high court who passed away after contracting COVID-19.

The court said stories of oxygen shortage going viral on social media were showing “harassment meted out” by the district administrations and the police “to those poor citizens who were begging for an oxygen cylinder to save the life of their near and dear ones”.

The order mentioned news reports about the deaths of five patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of a new trauma centre at the Meerut Medical College on Sunday and fatalities at the Sun Hospital in Lucknow. The court also mentioned reports on similar deaths in another private hospital in Meerut, where the facility took its “hands off the admitted Covid patients only for the reason that oxygen supply was not made even after demand”.

“We find these news items showing a quite contrary picture to one claimed by the Government that there was sufficient supply of oxygen,” read the order.

India has the second highest number of active COVID-19 cases detected in the world. According to the latest data from the ministry of health, over 20.6 million cases of COVID-19 have been registered in the country. Over 16.9 million people have recovered and around 226,000 people have died. In the last 24 hours, 382,300 cases of coronavirus were detected, 25,000 more than the day before.

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