Dhaka, March 28 -- Fuming at the deaths of 33 children allegedly due to lack of ICU ventilators at Rajshahi Medical College Hospital (RMCH), Health and Family Welfare Minister Sardar Sakhawat Husain Bakul said the hospital director should "hang".

"In 11 days, 33 patients - all of them babies -- have died at RMCH. The hospital director did not inform us that there was no ventilator and neonatal ventilator. He should be hanged," he said on Saturday.

"After I called him, he told me, 'the media is exaggerating it a bit'.. He gave me a report yesterday, but could not deny the media coverage. What can I do?"

Bakul spoke at an event organised by the Society of Surgeons of Bangladesh in the capital's Shahbagh, according to a media statement of...