As India continues to gasp for air, Allahabad High Court on Tuesday said that covid patients dying due to shortage of oxygen is no less than a criminal act.
Observing the Covid situation across the country, the high court on Tuesday said that the deaths of patients due to non-supply of oxygen amounts to a ‘criminal act’, which is equivalent to genocide on part of people entrusted with its management.
“We are at pain in observing that the death of Covid patients just for non-supplying of oxygen to the hospitals is a criminal act and not less than a genocide by those who have been entrusted the task to ensure continuous procurement and supply chain of the liquid medical oxygen,” read an order passed by the Allahabad high court bench of Justice Ajit Kumar and Justice Siddhartha Varma.
The Allahabad High Court took stock of reports of shortage of medical oxygen due to rise in Covid-19 infections.
The court stressed that, “The news went viral that five patients had died in ICU of a new trauma centre of Medical College, Meerut on Sunday last. Similarly, news was also being viralled that one Sun Hospital in Gomti Nagar, Lucknow and another private hospital at Meerut had taken their hands off the admitted Covid patients only because oxygen supply was not made even after demand. We find these news items showing a quite contrary picture to one claimed by the Government that there was sufficient supply of oxygen.”
