Taking a lesson from the hospital tragedy in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, last month in which several children died allegedly due to shortage of oxygen, the Bihar health department has directed government hospitals across the state to stock up at least 50 to 200 oxygen cylinders each.

'We don't want a similar tragedy to happen here,' health department principal secretary R.K. Mahajan said during a news meet organised by the department at the secretariat on Monday. 'That's why we have issued a directive to all government hospitals to stock up oxygen cylinders. Each hospital should have at least 50 to 200 oxygen cylinders as per their requirement at any time.'

Mahajan denied allegations that a child, Rupa Kumari, died due to lack of oxygen at the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH) in Muzaffarpur three days ago.

RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav had tweeted on Saturday in Hindi, alleging that children are now dying in Bihar hospitals due to lack of oxygen.

Mahajan said a health department team comprising director-in-chief R.D. Ranjan and officials of the blood bank run by the Bihar State Aids Control Society, which visited SKMCH, had absolved the government hospital of any negligence. 'The girl was suffering from severe diarrhoea which was the reason of her death and not lack of oxygen,' Mahajan said.

Health department officials also denied allegations that a patient died due to lack of oxygen at a government health facility in Katihar on Sunday night. 'The patient was brought dead,' said health department spokesperson Anil Kumar. Highly placed sources in the know, however, said deaths have been reported due to alleged denial of oxygen in state hospitals earlier, and that if the department seriously implements the directive of stocking up on oxygen cylinders, it will help in saving many lives.

Last year, the Vaishali civil surgeon had issued show-cause notices to four employees for their alleged failure to provide oxygen to 30-year-old Samastipur resident Shravan Kumar at Hajipur Sadar Hospital. It was alleged that though Shravan was immediately put on oxygen support, when the oxygen in the cylinder ran out it took hospital employees at least five minutes to bring another cylinder. By then, Shravan was dead.

At the news meet, Mahajan also denied allegations levelled by the junior doctors of Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) that a few patients had died because of being given expired blood. The health department's team headed by the director-in-chief had absolved the DMCH administration, Mahajan said. 'Collected blood has to be used within 35 days, after which it expires. Our team checked the sample of blood kept in the blood bank of DMCH. Samples of last 22 days were checked, which were found okay. The allegation that expired blood was transfused to patients also cannot be justified because demand of blood is a lot and blood banks are not being able to fulfil it because of exhaustion of blood stock,' Mahajan said.

Mahajan also set a deadline by which medicines would be available in all government hospitals. 'Right now 91 types of medicines are available in Patna Medical College and Hospital,' he said. 'The Bihar Medical Services and Infrastructure Corporation Limited is supposed to supply all types of drugs to all state hospitals by February 28 next year.'