The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy: A Doctor's Memoir of a Deadly Medical Crisis

A HARROWING MEDICAL CRISIS.A DOCTOR IN THE EYE OF THE STORM.HIS ACCOUNT OF WHAT REALLY HAPPENED.On the evening of 10 August 2017, liquid oxygen ran out at the state-run Baba Raghav Das Medical Colleges Nehru Hospital in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. Reportedly, over the next two days, more than eighty patients - sixty-three children and eighteen adults - lost their lives. In the intervening hours, Dr Kafeel Khan, the junior-most lecturer at the colleges paediatrics department, went to extraordinary lengths to secure oxygen cylinders, perform emergency treatment and rally the staff in order to prevent as many deaths as possible.As the news of the tragedy grabbed national attention, Khan was called a hero for working ceaselessly to control the crisis and drawing attention to a healthcare system in dire need of repair. But a few days later, he found himself suspended and that an FIR had been filed against nine individuals, including him, for corruption and medical negligence, among other grave charges. Soon after he was summarily carted off to jail.The Gorakhpur Hospital Tragedy is Kafeel Khans first-hand chronicle of the events of that fateful night in August 2017 and the gut-wrenching turmoil that followed - a suspension without end, eight-month-long incarceration and a relentless fight for justice in the face of extreme apathy and persecution. About the Author Dr Kafeel Khan was born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. After completing his MBBS and MD in Paediatrics from Kasturba Medical College, Manipal, in Karnataka, he worked as an assistant professor at the Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences in Gangtok, before joining the Baba Raghav Das Medical College, Gorakhpur, as a lecturer. Since his suspension from the BRD Medical Colleges Nehru Hospital after the medical crisis of August 2017 and subsequent release from Gorakhpur Jail, Khan, along with his team and the help of ordinary citizens, has been working under the banner of Dr Kafeel Khan Mission Smile Foundation. He has also started a Health for All campaign to demand the Right to Healthcare legislation and has launched a new initiative named Doctors on Road to provide healthcare services to patients in the Indian hinterlands. In January 2020, Khan was arrested again and charged under the National Security Act (NSA) for his allegedly inflammatory speech at the Aligarh Muslim University; he subsequently spent seven months in prison. On 1 September 2020, all the charges under the NSA were dropped by the Allahabad High Court. Khan was terminated from service on 9 November 2021 by the BRD Medical College, and as of December 2021, cases against him are being pursued in lower courts even though the enquiries conducted by the state and central governments have not found any evidence of medical negligence or corruption against him.