Head of Indian Medical College and His Wife Charged in Oxygen Shortage
30, 2017
NEW DELHI — The chief of the Indian medical college where dozens of sick children died this month after the
oxygen supply ran out has been arrested on charges of culpable homicide, the Indian authorities have said.
The police said they planned to arrest more people in connection with the oxygen shortage,
including hospital account clerks, doctors and executives of the oxygen supply company.
Despite repeated warnings from technicians within the hospital
and from the oxygen supply company, the oxygen supply was allowed to dwindle to nothing.
Dr. Rajiv Mishra, who had been chief of Baba Raghav Das Medical College in Gorakhpur
until he was recently suspended, was arrested Tuesday along with his wife.
High-ranking government officials insisted that the hospital’s central oxygen supply system was empty for only two hours,
and that the shortage was not a factor in the deaths.
Mishra is under police custody for interrogation, and we are trying to arrest others," said Satyarth
Anirudha Pankaj, police chief of Gorakhpur, during a telephone interview Wednesday evening.