18 die in Chennai ICU as power for oxygen fails

As many as 18 patients admitted to the intensive care unit of a private hospital in Nandambakkam died between Wednesday morning and Thursday night after the oxygen supply stopped because generators in the basement stopped working. Not only were the generators placed in the basement, so too was the oxygen supply hub.

Meanwhile, with the water receding, Chennai city and its suburbs on Friday battled hard to pick up the pieces of life but occasional heavy rains threatened to cause more flooding as lakhs of people in the worst-hit areas faced acute shortages of essentials, including water, power, milk and food items, PTI reported. However, the weatherman has forecast only light rain for Chennai in the next 24 hours. Heavy to very heavy rains have been forecast for south coastal and interior districts and Puducherry. The blame game began soon after the bodies of the victims were shifted to the Royapettah government hospital. Relatives of the deceased expressed great shock over the incident. Government officials blamed the hospi-

-tal, reportedly built in a low-lying area prone to flooding during monsoons, for placing its generator sets in the basement while hospital owners blamed the electricity department for not supplying uninterrupted power to an essential service like a hospital.

“My mother Paranjyothi injured her shoulder in a train accident. She was admitted for surgery on November 21. She was all right and had started talking to us after the surgery. But now she is dead,” said grief-stricken Durga Prasad of Royapettah, a son of the deceased.

An MIOT hospital spokesperson said only 14 patients died after oxygen supply was cut in the hospital and that the other four died on the way or in Royapettah GH.

According to C. Sridhar, additional commissioner of police (south), a case of unnatural deaths has been registered by the police in connection with the incident. “Only after a detailed probe will we know if there was medical negligence or any other kind of violation which led to the deaths of the patients,” he said.

As many as 340 people have lost their lives in rain-related incidents in Tamil Nadu since the start of the Northeast Monsoon on October 28. Cuddalore saw the maximum number of casualties — 75, closely followed by Kancheepuram with 72 deaths. Chennai recorded 48 rain-related deaths, government sources said.

Anger spilled into the streets when senior ministers Natham Viswanathan, Sellur Raju and Gokul Indira visited R.K. Nagar, chief minister Jayalalithaa’s constituency, where people gheraoed and heckled them, forcing them to make a hasty retreat, according to PTI.

Later, at an official press conference in the Secretariat, the first in recent days, power minister Natham Viswanathan and chief secretary Gnanadesikan claimed that relief and rescue works were in full swing and were “extraordinary”.

The minister described the Opposition’s criticism of relief works as politically motivated with an eye on Assembly elections early next year. He claimed people even in the worst-affected areas refuse to leave their homes but accept only food relief supplied by official agencies.

Similar scenes were witnessed in several areas where people vented their anger at officials, complaining lack of any help from authorities.