Mandla: In a heart-wrenching tragedy that exposed the failure of basic emergency care, a man was forced to watch his 21-year-old son take his final breaths in a government ambulance after its oxygen supply allegedly ran out mid-journey in Madhya Pradesh’s Mandla district.
A purported video of the incident, which occurred in the tribal-dominated district on July 27, surfaced on social media on Friday, July 31.
The patient, Ajit Baraiya, a resident of Sunhera Mal village under Bamhani police station limits, had been undergoing regular dialysis at the district hospital, officials said.
According to the family, Ajit’s father called for an ambulance to take him to the community health centre at Bamhani after his condition deteriorated.
They claimed that during the drive to the community health centre, the patient was denied oxygen, despite him having difficulty breathing. Doctors later put him on oxygen after referring him to the district hospital, but the supply in the ambulance ran out during the journey, following which he died in his father’s lap, the family alleged.
‘My son died gasping for breath’
Speaking to local reporters, the deceased man’s distraught father said, “My son died gasping for breath in the ambulance. The ambulance arrived one hour after we dialled for it, and the oxygen supply ran out 3 km into the journey to the Mandla district hospital, and he died before we could reach there.”
Ajit would have survived had the oxygen been available throughout the journey, he said tearfully.
A video of the incident, which is doing rounds on social media, shows the man lying on a stretcher inside the ambulance with his father by his side.
Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr DJ Mohanty said that a four-member inquiry committee was constituted after the matter came to the department’s notice.
“The committee has been asked to submit its report at the earliest so that appropriate action can be taken against those found responsible,” Mohanty said.
