Did 'mock oxygen drill' at Uttar Pradesh hospital kill 22 Covid-19 patients?

Several shocking videos which went viral on social media on Tuesday claimed that 22 Covid-19 patients, who were on oxygen support at a private hospital in Uttar Pradesh's Agra in April, might have died after the hospital snapped oxygen supply as part of a 'mock oxygen drill'.

The videos pertain to the period when there was an acute shortage of oxygen at the hospitals and many patients had lost their lives owing to a lack of the life-saving gas.

The videos showed the owner of the Hospital purportedly saying that the 'mock oxygen drill' had been undertaken after the attendants of the patients refused to agree to the forced discharge of the patients owing to a shortage of oxygen.

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''Start discharging the patients....there is no oxygen....even the chief minister can not make it available...I asked the attendants to take their patients elsewhere...they kept saying that they would not go elsewhere,'' a person, who was sitting next to the owner, was heard saying in one of the videos.

The man was further heard saying that they snapped the oxygen supply of 96 patients, who were admitted there, at 7 AM on April 26 to see who 'survive'.

''Within five minutes 22 patients turned blue....they were segregated,'' the man is heard saying.

The videos showed the man saying that the hospital then asked the attendants of the patients to bring their own oxygen cylinders. ''This was a very good experiment,'' he is heard saying.

Official records showed that the hospital had reported only four deaths on April 26. The district officials had also not reported the deaths.

UP health minister Jai Pratap Singh said that a probe has been ordered into the matter. ''We will take action after the probe report is submitted,'' he said here.

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Officials said that the hospital had been 'sealed' and that all the patients, who were admitted there, had been shifted to other hospitals.

''A case under the Epidemics Act has been registered against the hospital owner,'' a senior district official said in Agra.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi demanded stern action in the matter. ''The BJP regime lacks both oxygen and humanity,'' the former Congress president said in a Tweet.