Senior doctors at Sushruta Trauma centre had not informed the officials in ministry of health of the city government about the death of four ICU patients due to lack of oxygen on December 4, 2012. The preliminary inquiry report, a copy of which is with this newspaper, also shows that the company which provided oxygen to the trauma centre, had warned the hospital to pull out all the staff if the authorities do not renew their contract. The hospital authorities informed the company through correspondence that the process of renewal of the contract was in process and requested the company, which had been blacklisted now, to proceed with the services. The report clearly shows that senior officials and the ministry of health, Delhi, made the company and junior employees scapegoats in the incident.
In an office memorandum of the health ministry, issued on December 6 last year, the government advised to the medical superintendents that in all such instances they should strictly follow the prescribed reporting channel and administrative protocol.
“No such intimation of the incident was received by the undersigned or office of the ministry of health, either through the office of the medical superintendent Lok Nayak hospital or the additional medical superintendent of Sushruta Trauma centre, which is a breach in the prescribed reporting channel of the department of health and family welfare of Delhi government,” the letter said.
Delhi health minister A.K. Walia also confirmed that the health ministry was not informed immediately after the incident. “The doctors constituted a committee for the inquiry of the incident without informing the health ministry,” he told this newspaper. The additional superintendent of the trauma centre, however, lodged an FIR against the company.