JAIPUR/RAIPUR : Two Congress-led states on Thursday refuted the Centre’s statement in Parliament that “no deaths due to lack of oxygen were specifically reported by the states” during the second wave of Covid-19.
The health ministers of Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh claimed their states were never asked to submit the relevant data and hence did not report the number of Covid deaths medically attributed to oxygen shortage.
Both questioned the basis of the Centre’s statement in Parliament when the relevant data wasn’t collected from the states. Rajasthan health minister Raghu Sharma said majority of the deaths during the second wave in the state were due to oxygen shortage.
The Centre, in a written statement on Tuesday, had informed the Rajya Sabha that states did not specifically report deaths due to oxygen shortage. In a series of tweets on Thursday, Chhattisgarh health minister TS Singh Deo pointed out that the “number of deaths in a day, deaths with comorbidity, deaths without comorbidity and type of comorbidity” were the only categories in which data was sought. Singh Deo alleged that the Centre deliberately misled Parliament without checking with the states. “When GOI says ‘no one died due to lack of oxygen during the second wave,’ they are probably referring to Chhattisgarh — a state with surplus oxygen,” added Singh Deo.
