PANAJI: The dark hour between 2am and 6am claimed eight more lives on Saturday due to oxygen fluctuations at Goa Medical College, taking the toll of Covid patients dead due to the oxygen crisis at the premier government hospital to 83 during the past five days.
While the GMC doctors were reluctant to directly attribute the deaths to an erratic oxygen supply, nurses, relatives of patients and volunteers confirmed to TOI that transitory dips in oxygen were noticed throughout the night.
“We cannot directly say that this is the reason (interruption in oxygen supply) why they died. Most of the patients die because of Covid pneumonia and oxygen is an important part of the treatment,” said GMC dean Dr S M Bandekar.
Anti-IIT agitators
PANAJI:The state government has informed the high court of Bombay at Goa that the FIR filed against the anti-IIT protesters at Melauli in Sattari over a violent protest cannot be withdrawn.
Additional government advocate Pravin Faldessai told the high court that he is of the opinion that the prosecution cannot be withdrawn by the government as weapons were used in the agitation.
He said that “though the people have a right to agitate such a right does not extend to using deadly weapons, particularly against police officials or any other persons”. He submitted that if any of the individual petitioners are found not involved, relief can be considered, but added that it would not be appropriate to either withdraw the prosecution in its entirety or to quash the FIR.