Family members peer into a room where children are on life support, at BRD medical college hospital in Gorakhpur Monday. (Express/Vishal Srivastav)
Director General of the Uttar Pradesh medical education department on Monday said no relative of the more than 60 children, who had died, reportedly due to lack of oxygen supply, in the past five days at Gorakhpur’s BRD Medical College Hospital, has asked for autopsy to be conducted. The state government, too, has not issued any directive asking the hospital to conduct postmortem.
“No postmortem is being conducted on the children who died at the hospital. No family member has come forward till now requesting that postmortem be conducted. We have received no orders for autopsy, in case postmortem examinations were conducted, the cause of death would have come as cardio respiratory arrest,” Director General (Medical Education) K K Gupta said.
Newly appointed principal of BRD hospital, Dr P K Singh said that there is no provision to get postmortem conducted on patients who died of infection. “Hence, we are not conducting autopsy on bodies of the children,” he added.
In the past one week, around 85 children have died at the hospital. While 60 had died till August 11, 12 died on Saturday and 13 on Sunday. Gorakhpur Division Commissioner Anil Kumar said he has no information on whether the hospital has received any directive to conduct postmortem examinations. “A detailed inquiry is on… There was no shortage of oxygen,” he said. While Gorakhpur District Magistrate Rajeev Rautela refused to speak on the issue, Chief Medical Officer Ravindra Kumar said: “I have not received any directive to conduct autopsy on the bodies.”
