New Delhi: With two of Delhi’s top hospitals — Max Hospital and Ganga Ram — having said that their oxygen supplies will last for just a few hours, as per a report by NDTV, the COVID-19 crisis in Delhi seems to only worsen by the day. The national capital struggles to contain a spiralling COVID-19 caseload that reached 32,000 in a span of 24 hours last evening. Amid complaints of oxygen scarcity in hospitals throughout the nation owing to the massive spike in coronavirus cases, doctors from Sir Ganga Ram Hospital told NDTV that they have merely about eight hours of oxygen left for COVID-19 patients.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged the Centre to provide medical oxygen to Delhi, saying some hospitals are going to run out of it in a few hours. He had on Sunday termed the shortage of oxygen for coronavirus patients an “emergency”. Kejriwal also wrote to Union Minister of Commerce and Industries Piyush Goyal, seeking his intervention in the matter. “Serious oxygen crisis persists in Delhi. I again urge the Centre to urgently provide oxygen to Delhi. Some hospitals are left with just a few hours of oxygen,” the chief minister tweeted on Tuesday evening.

The Delhi government had on Monday set up a 24-member committee to ensure “rational” use of oxygen for treatment of COVID-19 patients. An order issued by the Health Department said the ‘Oxygen Audit Committee’ will identify areas of wasteful consumption. The consumption of oxygen has undergone a quantum increase with the admission of a large number of serious patients who require oxygen support, it said.

(With inputs from PTI)