Agra hospital shut down after oxygen 'mock drill' fiasco

After a probe by ADM (City) and the Chief Medical Officer, the district administration ordered sealing of Paras hospital

Following the video clip of an owner of a private hospital in Agra talking about cutting Covid-19 patients’ oxygen supply as a part of a “mock drill” surfaced on the internet, the Agra district administration has now ordered sealing of the hospital.

The incident took place at Shri Paras Hospital in Agra, where the owner of the hospital carried out a mock drill in which the oxygen supply was cut out for five minutes to find out which Covid-19 patients would die in case of oxygen shortage.

Prabhu Narain Singh, Agra District Magistrate, has told The Indian Express that the person in the video has been identified as Dr Arinjay Jain.

The video was reportedly made on April 28. Jain was seen in the video talking about their “experiment” that helped them filter out 22 patients who "turned blue" after stopping their oxygen supply for five minutes. According to the District Magistrate, four Covid-19 patients died on the same day, while three more died the next day.

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In the video, Jain said he was warned by the “biggest (oxygen) supplier” of Agra that due to limited stock, oxygen will only last till April 26.

“Kuch log ko vyaktigat taur pe samjhana shuru kiya… Kuch log… bole nahin jayenge. Maine kaha koi nahin ja raha, dimag mat lagao… ab woh chhaanto jinke oxygen bandh ho sakti hai. Ek trial maar do, mock drill karke dekh lo. Samajh jayenge kaun sa marega, kaun sa nahi marega. (We started making some patients understand individually. Some of them didn’t agree to leave. I told that there’s no need to think so much, now identify whose oxygen supply stopped. Do one trial, try to do a mock drill. We will get to know who will die and who won’t),” Jain can be heard saying in the video.

“Ek mock drill kari humne subah 7 baje… Shoonya kar diye sabke. Phir chhaant gaye 22 mareej… Turant khol diye. 22 chhaant gaye je marenge. Chhatpata gaye, neele padne lage… Chalo, 74 bache… Time mil jayega… Sabse bada prayog yahi raha (We conducted a mock drill at 7 am. We brought it [oxygen supply] to zero. Then 22 patients (in critical state) were filtered out … Then restored supply immediately. Those patients were started turning blue… 74 remained… We got some time… It was our biggest experiment),” he added.

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When questioned about the incident on Tuesday, Jain told The Indian Express, “We adjusted the bed flow of oxygen of patients just to check what amount was required. Since everyone had been saying that oxygen must be used judiciously, we decided to adjust levels to see if we could use less. We identified 22 patients who required high-flow oxygen. We had sleepless nights over oxygen supply and this was our experiment to stabilise supply. We did not cut off oxygen as is being said everywhere. There is no irreversible impact of lowering oxygen supply."

“We would send five cylinders wherever there was scarcity. In the case of Paras Hospital, we first sent five cylinders. When they faced more requirement, and their usual vendor could not deliver, we sent them cylinders through one of our suppliers,” Prabhu Narain Singh told the publication.

After a probe by ADM (City) and the Chief Medical Officer (CMO), the district administration ordered the hospital to shut down from June 8. There are 55 patients in the hospital who need to be shifted elsewhere and the CMO will be in charge of it, Singh added.