LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh health minister Jai Pratap Singh on Thursday said that there was not a single Covid-19 death due to lack of oxygen in the state during the second wave.
This, he said, was based on the information made available to him as per the death certificates issued to those who died due to Covid-19.
In August this year, the minister had, on the floor of the Vidhan Parishad, also stated that the government did not have data on the Covid-19 deaths which had taken place at home.
The minister’s statement came in response to a question raised by Congress MLC Deepak Singh in the Legislative Council on Thursday, leading to furore among the Opposition, which cited various instances of oxygen shortage during the second wave which hit UP in April 2021.
Leader of the House and deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, in turn, hit out at the Opposition, saying that instead of raising such issues, it should appreciate the swift action taken by the government in ensuring that there was sufficient oxygen and medicines available in the state because of which they were able to avoid a “massive disaster”.
“Whatever information is with us is based on the death certificates. None of the 22,915 deaths recorded in the state show in the certificates that the death was due to oxygen shortage. The reasons range from complications to various other diseases. When we saw that there was a shortage of oxygen, we arranged for it through air, train and road,” the health minister said.
In response to a question raised on Agra’s Paras Hospital where several Covid-19 patients died after the hospital administration allegedly turned off oxygen, the minister said that it was a mock drill and there were no deaths due to shortage of oxygen.
