Former Union Minister and AICC observer for Goa, P Chidambaram on Monday slammed the report by an expert committee appointed by the state government to probe oxygen-related deaths at Goa government's apex health facility, the Goa Medical College, during the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic as ‘a desperate attempt to give a clean chit to the BJP government in Goa’.
“The Hospital is blamed but the government is not to be blamed! Strange logic in respect of a government-OWNED hospital!” the former union minister tweeted.
He also called for the resignation of Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Health minister Vishwajit Rane.
“Why does the Goa government have a Department of Health and a Minister of Health, if they are not responsible?” he tweeted.
Opposition legislators also staged a walkout on the inaugural day of the two-day assembly session on Monday.
The committee which compiled the report was headed by the Director of the Indian Institute of Technology Goa Dr B.K. Mishra, former dean of GMC Dr V.N. Jindal and Secretary Revenue Sanjay Kumar.
The report also slammed the hospital administration for allowing monopolisation of oxygen supply at the apex hospital and other sub-centres, while also adding that the health facility did not undertake any assessment of rational use of oxygen during the crisis.
"In June 2018, the decision of the public health department to extend the scope of work awarded to M/s Scoop to all across the state of Goa resulted in the creation of a single supplier for all the public health infrastructure. After this extension, health institutions had no alternative source of oxygen, in case of emergency," the report said.
"As GMC's oxygen demand rose, M/s Scoop stopped supplying oxygen to the other public hospitals, except GMC, without any warning, letter or message," it also said.
Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat also tweeted saying the government had no guts to respond to his assembly question on oxygen-related deaths.
"The most insensitive, irresponsible @BJP4Goa Government responsible for Deaths of Innocent #Covid Patients due to Oxygen Shortage & Mismanagement had no guts to reply to my Starred LAQ 3A on Covid Deaths. #TruthAlwaysPrevails #GoaAssembly #HouseAdjourned," Kamat tweeted.