AMMAN: A Jordanian court on Sunday sentenced five suspects to three years in prison each for their involvement in the oxygen outage that caused the death of 10 coronavirus patients in the New Salt Public Hospital.
In its ruling, a copy of which was seen by Arab News, the court charged the five main suspects in the case, dubbed “Salt medical tragedy,” with causing death, repeated ten times, and imposed on each one of them a fine of JD3,575 ($5,056).
One of the convicts was the former director of the hospital, Abdel Razak Al-Khashman.
The court declared eight other suspects in the case innocent and said that the five convicted defendants should have the right to challenge its verdict at the specialized courts.
Ten COVID-19 patients died at the Al-Hussein New Salt Hospital on March 13 this year after the facility ran out of oxygen, sparking widespread anger in the kingdom and forcing health minister Nazir Obeidat to resign.
Hundreds of angry people gathered outside the hospital at the time, while the Salt town in northwest of Amman saw nights of protests that prompted the intervention of security forces.
King Abdullah of Jordan visited the hospital on March 13. In video footage online, a visibly angry Abdullah, shaking his head and gesticulating, tells the hospital director: “How could such a thing happen? This is unacceptable.”
Relatives of the dead said that the hospital had been suffering from a severe shortage of oxygen and medical staff. They called for the entire government to be held accountable.
With the case sparking public wrath across the kingdom, Prime Minister Bisher Al-Khasawneh apologized for the incident, saying: “What happened is a huge and flagrant mistake, unjustified and unacceptable. We cannot accept the death of a single Jordanian . . . The government alone assumes full responsibility for what happened.”
