GORAKHPUR (Uttar Pradesh): At least 30 children died in the state-run Baba Raghav Das Medical College here during the last 48 hours, district magistrate Rajeev Rautela said on Friday, but gave no reasons for such a large number of deaths. Rautela was quoted by PTI as saying that 17 children died in the neo-natal ward, five in the AES (acute encephalitis syndrome) ward and eight in the general ward.
According to news agency ANI, two more deaths were recorded in the hospital on Saturday morning.
State health minister Siddharth Nath Singh and minister for technical and medical education Ashutosh Tandon will meet chief minister Yogi Adityanath today in the wake of the incident. They will visit the hospital after their meeting.
Singh said that no child died due to the shortage of oxygen. "Those behind any kind of laxity will not be spared," he told reporters before leaving for Gorakhpur.
Talking about problems relating to the oxygen supply facility at the hospital, he said, "We are probing all the angles – Was there a shortage? Whether the authorities were aware of this? Was there any other issue? Who is responsible?, etc."
On opposition dubbing the tragedy as a failure of the Yogi Adityanath government, he responded, "This is not the time to play politics."
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