Shahdol: At least six COVID-19 patients were killed in the ICU of a state hospital in Madhya Pradesh’s Shahdol allegedly due to low pressure in the medical oxygen supply. The incident took place at the Government Medical College Hospital (GMCH) between Saturday and Sunday.
However, the district administration denied that these deaths were caused by the “lack of oxygen”.
“Of the 62 patients admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) in the medical college COVID-19 center, six patients died after the low pressure of liquid oxygen late last night, ”said the dean, dr. Milind Shiralkar, said adding that the other critical patients are safe. The hospital has 62 ICU beds where it is critical COVID-19 patients are admitted.
However, Shiralkar later said if low oxygen pressure was the cause, other patients would be affected as well. “But the low oxygen pressure did not affect the other patients,” he said.
Shiralkar said experts were called in to determine the exact cause of the deaths of the six patients. According to him, the liquid oxygen supply in the hospital started to run out late Saturday night.
“Providers were in constant contact, but the vehicle could not reach until late at night, reducing the pressure of oxygen delivered to the patients,” he said. .
The GMCH dean also said there had been a shortage of oxygen supply in recent days. The oxygen plant on campus of the hospital has a storage capacity of 10 kiloliters per day, Shiralkar said, adding that liquid oxygen is brought from other states.
Dr Satyendra Singh, district collector in Shahdol, told reporters that all six of the patients who died in the GMCH were in a critical condition. ‘The hospital dean told me that six patients died by 8 o’clock, but the cause of their death was not the lack of oxygen. “They were critical patients and none of them died due to the lack of oxygen,” he said.
After the dean notified the administration of the “lack of oxygen” in the hospital, back cylinders were sent from the district hospital to the GMCH, he added. Singh further said the district administration regularly monitors the oxygen supply.
‘There is no shortage of medical oxygen in the district. We have more than 600 oxygen cylinders in the district, in addition to 35 oxygen concentrators in the GMCH, ” said the collector, and an oxygen tanker is on its way to Shahdol.
Kamal Nath, president of the Madhya Pradesh Congress, asked the state government how long the deaths due to oxygen deficiency in the state will last. In a tweet, Nath said: ‘Now there is a lot of sad news about deaths due to oxygen deficiency from Shahdol? Why did the government not wake up even after death in Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain, Sagar, Jabalpur, Khandwa, Khargone due to lack of oxygen? After all, how long will deaths last due to oxygen deficiency in the state? ‘
To call the situation dire, Nath also said that there is a shortage of Remdesivir injections used to treat COVID-19 patients. He claims that the main antiviral drug and medical oxygen is only available on paper and not in reality.
According to the state health bulletin, 142 are fresh coronavirus positive cases were detected in Shahdol on Saturday, which took the case load in the district to 4528. The death toll is 38.
Source: Telangana Today