Samajwadi Party has slammed the health minister Siddarth Nath Singh for terming the tragedy at Gorakhpur medical college as `instinctive’. The health minister had said death toll is higher in August month of the year due to acute encephalitis syndrome.
“If the death of children in the month of August is instinctive and a routine affair then why the Yogi Adityanath government is so panicky. Why the chief minister rushed the two ministers to Baba Raghav Das Medical college on Saturday and the state government ordered high level probe by the state’s chief secretary and suspended the principal of the medical college’’, said the SP leader and leader of opposition in UP assembly Ram Govind Chowdhary here on Sunday. He said the government has also ordered magisterial probe and the district magistrate of Gorakhpur has also submitted an inquiry report to the state government.
The health minister Siddharth Nath Singh on Saturday claiming that the death of children in last five days in BRD medical college were not due to the disruption in supply of oxygen. He had claimed that all the deaths were due to other reasons including acute encephalitis syndrome. He also cited the data of deaths of children in previous year in BRD medical college claiming that the death toll is higher in the month of August. He said in August 2014, 567 deaths, in August 2015, 668 deaths and in August 2016, 587 deaths were reported due to the Japanese encephalitis and acute encephalitis. .
“Yogi Adityanath government is not only panicky is also confused and clueless as to how to deal with the tragedy caused by the disruption in supply of oxygen. Government has no clue as to what it intends to communicate to the people by reducing the tragedy to mere statistics’’, said Ram Govind Chowdhary. He added `` chief minister Yogi Adityanath visited the BRD medical college on Sunday along with Union health minister JP Nadda;;.
“If the high death toll in the month of August is a routine affair then why the prime minister Narendra Modi is so worried that he has dispatched two Union ministers and team of specialists doctors from AIIMS Delhi to Gorakhpur’’, said the SP leader adding `` if the tragedy is a annual affair which occurs in August every year then why the police is desperately searching for the gas vendor and raiding his possible hideouts’’.
The leader of opposition said the sequence3 of events in Gorakhpur have demonstrated that the BRD medical college administration and the state government were caught off guard and failed to act in time for releasing the outstanding dues of the gas vendor despite repeated reminders and categorical notice for disrupting the supply in case of further delay in payment.
He said the people in Gorakhpur have rejected the claims of the chief minister that the deaths were not caused due to the disruption in gas supply. He said the people blame the disruption of gas supply as the sole reason of the tragedy.