MUMBAI: As oxygen shortage hit a civic hospital on Friday, 46 Covid positive patients had to be shifted out of Bhagwati Hospital, Borivali to three other municipal facilities.
Civic authorities said that the hospital didn’t get its regular fill of oxygen on time and hence moved out the patients before the stocks fully ran out.
Of the 45 patients, 25 were moved to the Dahisar jumbo hospital, 10 to Bal Thackeray Trauma Hospital in Jogeshwari and 11 to Babasaheb Ambedkar hospital in Kandivli. Dr P Jadhav, chief superintendent of peripheral hospitals, confirmed that the patients had to be shifted on account of oxygen shortage.
“Bhagwati didn’t get their regular oxygen supply on Friday, so we decided to shift the relatively stable patients before the stocks ran dry,” he said.
The shifting of patients began around noon and went on till 4pm. The hospital is believed to have ten dura cylinders as well as jumbo cylinders. Jadhav said that they were mobilising oxygen supply so that other patients are not affected. Last week, several private hospitals were hit by a similar shortage, forcing families to desperately look for beds with available oxygen supply. As the oxygen shortage gets more acute in the state—Maharashtra is consuming 1500 MT against its daily production of 1250MT—the supply could get more erratic.
BJP Corporator Vinod Mishra said that the
BMC had failed to manage oxygen supply. “There is total chaos as far as bed management and oxygen supply is concerned. If there is a shortage of oxygen in BMC hospitals, then we can only imagine how bad the situation must be in private hospitals. Shifting patients is dangerous and it's a big risk to their health,” Mishra said. “The BMC has appointed nodal officers to coordinate oxygen supply but this should have been done earlier and not after there was a shortage. The BMC must tell us the status of oxygen supply in all its hospitals and not admit patients if there is no oxygen supply,” Mishra said.
BMC chief IS Chahal had said on Thursday that the city’s 150 Covid hospitals required around 235 metric tons of oxygen daily, and that the Corporation has asked the state to provide more for the city.