‘I pumped and I pumped': What caused an Indian hospital to run out of oxygen

Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur, India, ran out of oxygen on Aug. 11, forcing parents to use small, hand-operated resuscitators to keep their own children breathing.

The New York Times spoke with some of the parents and physicians who were in the hospital that night. They say the hospital’s supply of liquid oxygen had been dwindling after its suppliers cut off shipments over lack of payment on a $100,000 bill. The 1,000-bed hospital had been regarded as one of the best in the area, but after 60 children died while the facility worked to restore its oxygen supply, it's now being used as an example of the country’s overburdened and poorly managed healthcare system.

The problems go beyond having too many patients. Vendors in India doing business with government officials are often squeezed for bribes and kickbacks to make sure public facilities pay them. When some parents of pediatric patients who died were ask what was to blame for oxygen running out, they simply said, “corruption.”

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