New Delhi: Family members of COVID-19 patients outside an oxygen-filling center to refill their empty cylinders, as demand for the gas rises due to spike in coronavirus cases
Twenty critically ill patients died overnight at Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi amid a serious oxygen crisis, officials said on Saturday. "The oxygen pressure has dipped as we are running out of stock," Dr. DK Baluja, the medical director of Jaipur Golden Hospital said. He said the hospital has over 200 patients and they had only half an hour of oxygen was left at 10:45 am. It received the last refill of oxygen around midnight, after hours of delay.
"Nobody has promised anything. Everybody is saying we will do our best," the medical director said when asked if the hospital received any help from the government.
Dr. Baluja said the hospital has over 200 patients and 80 per cent of them are on oxygen support. Around 35 patients are in the ICU, he said.
The city has been grappling with the shortage in oxygen supply amid a huge surge in coronavirus cases. Executive Director of the hospital Sudhanshu Bankata said the healthcare facility exhausted its oxygen stock around 9 am.
On Friday, Delhi Police Commissioner SN Shrivastava had instructed his officers that requests received by PCR for the supply of oxygen to hospitals should be passed on to designated helpline numbers.
He also sent a broadcast message to all the officers in this regard.
"… while it is only humane to provide oxygen cylinders to hospitals which are running short of supply, it is more appropriate to let the arrangements made by DDMA work for the supply of oxygen to the hospitals," the message stated.
With many hospitals struggling with dangerously low levels of oxygen supply, the Delhi government has also decided to maintain a buffer stock of the gas to be used during extremely critical situations, government sources said on Friday.
The Centre has enhanced the daily quota of medical oxygen for Delhi from 378 MT to 480 MT.
The Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) had on Thursday appointed three senior IAS officers as nodal officers to ensure smooth distribution and supply of oxygen to various hospitals in the city.
COVID-19 situation in Delhi
Delhi logged 24,331 fresh COVID-19 cases and a record single-day jump of 348 deaths on Friday while the positivity rate stood at 32.
43 per cent, according to the latest health bulletin. The city has reported around 2,100 deaths due to the deadly virus in the last 11 days.
It had recorded 306 COVID deaths and 26,169 cases with a positivity rate of 36.24 per cent, the highest since the pandemic began a year ago, on Thursday.
On Wednesday, 24,638 cases and 249 deaths were registered with a positivity rate of 31.28 per cent.
The capital had witnessed 28,395 cases, the highest single-day jump so far, with a positivity rate of 32.82 per cent on Tuesday.
Authorities logged 306 deaths on Thursday, 249 on Wednesday, 277 on Tuesday, 240 on Monday, 161 on Sunday, and 167 on Saturday.
