The former director of the government-run hospital, Abdulrazzaq Al Khashman, and four others in the Jordanian town of Al-Salt was sentenced Sunday to three years after 10 COVID-19 patients died over oxygen supply failure, media reported.
The Amman Magistrate’s civil court also sentenced four others, the head of the medical gases group, director of medical devices and an oxygen technician, according to Jordan News Agency (Petra).
Each of them was given a three-year prison sentence and fined 3,575 Jordanian dinars ($5,042), the news agency reported.
Initially, eight more people including two senior officials of the Jordanian Health Ministry were also accused of the unintentional murder, but they were eventually found not guilty, Petra reported.
The hour-long disruption of oxygen supply in the hospital occurred this past March and led to 10 COVID-19 patients in intensive care facilities.
Right after the incident, the country’s Health Minister Nathir Obeidat submitted his resignation to the prime minister.
The authorities launched a probe into the incident and pledged to hold responsible all those who was involved in the outage.
The deaths triggered nationwide protests which ended up with numerous arrests. Many citizens have noted that the public services have deteriorated within the past two years amid rising unemployment rate reaching 25%, according to official figures.
King Abdullah visited the hospital and cited negligence as the cause of the incident, but said that he was not going to change the government, as protesters demanded.—AP
