Uttar Pradesh-based doctor Kafeel Khan, who was arrested after the death of 60 infants last August in the Baba Raghav Das Medical College hospital in Gorakhpur, allegedly due to lack of oxygen and released on bail, said the state of medical care in rural Karnataka is far better than what’s available in the tertiary care hospitals of U.P.
Speaking to presspersons in Bengaluru on Thursday, as part of ‘Save Constitution’ campaign, he said he had worked in the peripheral healthcare centres in Dakshina Kannada after his medical course in KMC Manipal in 2005. “I spent 12 years of my life in KMC Manipal and I have served in rural healthcare facilities during the course of my studies here. I can tell you the rural healthcare available in 2005 in peripheral areas were much better than what is available in bigger hospitals in U.P. now,” he said.
“Every year a thousand children die of Encephalitis in U.P. Those who survive are crippled for life,” he said.
The doctor, who was initially hailed as a hero for using his resources to supply oxygen to BRD Medical College hospital during the crisis hour on the night of August 10 last year, when infants died there as the oxygen supply allegedly stopped, languished in jail for eight months last year. He was released on bail last month.
Describing in detail how he drove around in his car to get the cylinders, and finally took the help of the Sashastra Seema Bal, he said his life changed the day U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath came to the hospital. “He asked, ‘So you are Dr. Kafeel? You arranged cylinders?’ I said, ‘Yes sir.’ He got angry and said, ‘So you think by arranging cylinders, you would become a hero?’”
“It was a total administrative failure at the higher level. They did not realise the gravity and just to save themselves, they made us scapegoats and put us behind bars,” he alleged.
