In what could be termed as a damning testimony against the Paras Hospital authorities in Agra, a man who was witness to the goings-on in the Hospital has claimed that he had seen many deaths in the hospital on the 26th and 27th of April.
“I had got my wife admitted to Paras Hospital on 23rd of April because she had post Covid complications. My father died on the night of April 26 and my wife died the next day. On the 26th, when I was in the ICU with my father and my wife, I witnessed the ICU getting emptied one after the other. On 27th of April, only one or two beds were occupied, the rest were completely vacant. I realised that because of lack of oxygen, beds were getting emptied one after the other. By ‘empty’ I mean ‘death’, people were dying,” said Amit Chawla.
The video of Dr. Arinjay Jain, the owner of Paras Hospital that went viral on social media
The video of Paras Hospital’s owner had recently gone viral on social media where he was allegedly heard saying that he had conducted a mock drill in his hospital on April 26th and had cut off oxygen supply to see how many people would die and how many would survive.
After the controversial video surfaced, Dr. Jain claimed that he was misquoted and that 22 people had not died in his hospital because of the mock drill. Dr Jain reiterated that on the 26th and 27th of April, the hospital only reported 7 deaths.
In what could be seen as a damning testimony against the hospital, Amit Chawla’s accounts raise a lot of questions on the claims made by the hospital owner. Chawla says that he had seen many more deaths in the hospital during those two crucial days than what was being claimed by the owner of the hospital.
Amit Chawla who lost his wife and father on the 26th and 27th of April in Paras Hospital says he was a witness to many deaths in the hospital during the two days
“I saw 5 to 6 patients dying in front of me. They were asking for an oxygen cylinder from me. I told them with folded hands that I cannot give them the oxygen cylinder because my wife needed it too but unfortunately my wife succumbed. She died in my arms,” added Chawla.
While the hospital owner Dr Jain claimed that only 3 Covid patients died on April 26th and 4 patients had died on April 27th in the hospital, the District Magistrate of Agra had reversed the figures and claimed that 4 patients had died in the hospital on April 26th and 3 deaths were reported on the 27th of April.
With multiple accounts of the events that led to the patient deaths doing rounds, it is the eyewitness account that holds the key to perhaps understanding what happened in the Agra hospital in the last week of April.
While the UP government has ordered an inquiry into the incident, the hospital authorities were seen abruptly evicting the patients on Tuesday after the district administration decided to seal the hospital.
Violence erupted in Paras Hospital on Tuesday while patients were being shifted out of the hospital
Violence was reported in the hospital premises on Tuesday when the patients were being shifted out. Meanwhile, Amit Chawla’s elder brother Ashok Chawla approached the UP police with a formal complaint seeking action against the Paras Hospital owner and the hospital staff for negligence.
