Gorakhpur tragedy: IMA's investigation committee ducks blame factors

Playing diplomatically correct is often the norm whenever any tragedy hits a public sector hospital in any part of India. The fatal consequences are very clear but nobody wants others to know who and where one went wrong.

This has been the cardinal rule followed by all stakeholders-- whether it is a government appointed inquiry committee or National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) or a non-government committee appointed by Indian Medical Association.

Take the case of IMA, which went on to appoint a three member expert committee --  Dr KP Kushwaha Expert, Dr Ashok Aggarwal NVP IMA and Dr BB Gupta IMA Gorakhpur President -- to investigate the matter and submit report in 48 hours.

The brief for the members were the following:

1. Was it an oxygen system failure.  Continuous reserve Oxygen supply must be available for atleast seven days. Why was the alarm not given a week back. Why ws oxygen supply allowed to cease. What were the engineers doing during this period?

2. Was there any medical negligence in treatments. Were the deaths medically avoidable.

3. Administrative negligence vs medical negligence.


However, two days later, IMA national president Dr KK Aggarwal merely issued a list of suggestions to the government to prevent Gorakhpur like tragedy, without mentioning anything what their expert committee had decided or found.

Here are the IMA's suggestions that they made on 17 August without any reference to their expert committee investigation:

1.    All patients denied treatment at government hospitals should be reimbursed for the cost of treatment in the private sector at pre-defined rates.

2.    All hospitals should have back up of one-week supply of all essential drugs, investigations and oxygen.

3.    IRDA has made it mandatory for all private hospitals to get NABH accreditation. The same should be extended to all government set ups.

4.    Essential drugs and investigations, not non-essential drugs and tests, should constitute the bulk of the expenditure of the allocated budget to reduce the cost of treatment.

Well, advice and suggestions come free and anybody can offer it irrespective of his or her status. You ask a street beggar, he too can offer one or two suggestions but who asked?.


Hospital Administration

There is no system of hospital administration as a special are in government hospitals. Due to work pressure and no exposure to hospital administration in medical curriculum, rarely does a good physician or a surgeon turn out to be a good hospital administrator.

This was the reason why Telangana state health department thought of appointing specialist administrators for the job in 2016.

Missing links in Gorakhpur story:

There are several loose ends in Gorakhpur story with claims and counter claims being made by hospital administration and Pushpa Sales. I am listing out several key questions here that investigators must go into.


1. The college never said they will not pay (there was of course delay in clearing dues but how many days, months, year? ) but pushpa suspended supply? 

2. Why a communication gap (if any) led them to stop life saving services that would become potentially harmful for the company Pushpa Sales reputation? 

3. Was the company on verge of bankruptcy that it cud not move an inch without getting all its Rs 65 lakh dues cleared at one go? 

4. Isn't is awkward and odd to imagine that they could not wait for sometime (even borrowing money from other sources) to maintain the supply side position intact despite the fact that unpaid money was on the way for them?

 5. If you are a contract outsourced govt employee or a regular govt employee or a private outsourced contractor supplying medical essentials, how many would quit just like that if they were to be unpaid Salaries for days, month, year? 

6. Was there a political conspiracy to pull down Yogi govt after its thumping majority by hitting in his home district? What lends credence to the idea was government's stand that "The supplier's demand for dues to the tune of Rs 65 lakh reached the state government at Lucknow on August 1, and the funds were released to the college on August 5."  

Even when the UP CM visited the hospital on August 9, they added, no mention was made of any problems in the supply of oxygen.

7. Is Pushpa Sales a front of Samajwadi Party?

8. There are legal options to get ones govt dues back by filing appropriate cases in court as terms of contract is well defined between Pushpa and medical college but why did they stop with just a legal notice? 

9. Why so hurry in stopping oxygen supply instead of approaching court to get arrears cleared by continuing with life saving oxygen supply? 

May be, they wanted deaths at any cost.