Not just numbers

.His riding has now got another distinction which is too disturbing and odd too.  Children are losing their lives at Baba Raghav Das Medical College and Hospital, in Gorakhpur. The toll has now gone up to 63, all these deaths have been attributed to lack of supply of oxygen. The issue has been painful and the reasons even more cumbersome. The sole supplier of liquid oxygen to the hospital had been writing letters regularly to the health officials, saying the supply of oxygen could be disrupted if accumulated dues of Rs. 68 lakhs were not cleared. The firm had written two letters to the hospital authorities in the first week of August cautioning them about a possible disruption. The letters, however, didn’t bring out any response. The hospital authorities made a partial payment of Rs. 21 lakhs against the accumulated dues on August 11, 2017, but only after registering deaths of 23 children just a day before. The centre is being envisaged as a nodal medical facility for the treatment of Japanese Encephalitis in the region.

These deaths are first major crisis for Chief Minister Adityanath who took over just six months back. One expected a dynamic and compassionate response from the Uttar Pradesh government considering the aura Chief Minister Adityanath brings with him. The first response came from the health minister who came out with the data and thus making a claim that these numbers are nothing as compared to the deaths in earlier years! “In August 2014, 567 children died and in August 2015, 668 kids died,” the Minister claimed. “In 2014, the medical college had an average of 19 deaths per day, in 2015 it was 22 deaths per day and in 2016 it was 19 deaths per day as critical patients come to the hospital from UP, Bihar and even Nepal,” he said. “Children do die,” his remarks were not in the right earnest. He went one step ahead, and suggested that there could be conspiracy behind the incident to defame the government and cited the number of deaths before and after 9^th of August.  These insensitive comments have not only left parents who lost their kids dejected, but also those who have had high hopes from the new government in Uttar Pradesh. The big question that the government needs to answer- Can the death of those kids just be treated as numbers? The minister would have done his part of the job had he put in an effort to indicate the carelessness of the hospital administration and bureaucracy. But his sense of achievement permitted him to use numbers as a balm on the wound of the sufferers. Chief Minister Adityanath was prompt in stating during interaction with media that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in touch and was concerned for the incident. It appeared that the Chief Minister found this as an opportunity for acting as a public relations officer for the Prime Minister and wanted to ensure that he is able to create hype for his cherished leader.

Nobel Laureate, Kailash Satyarthi righty described, “This is not a tragedy, it’s a massacre”. Many politicians and prominent personalities have asked the Chief Minister to apologize personally to all the families who have lost their children. The matter was even discussed at the Lok Sabha and the Congress party demanded that the chief minister should resign.

The dilemma is the ruling party treats the loss of life of young kids as numbers and the opposition creates an opportunity to put pressure on the ruling party. None of the leaders have strived to go to the depth of the issue. These deaths may have not occurred due to the lack of oxygen cylinders as claimed by the government. Nevertheless, such deaths can’t be just treated as natural deaths. The enquiry commission set up by the chief minister would do only as various other commissions have done-fire a government official and let the issue die a natural death. Will there be an attempt to address the real causes, the failure of the system and have recommendations that would prevent such incidence in future?  From “children do die” – can India move to “children won’t die”?