Oxygen crisis hits Delhi govt’s largest Covid hospital

The largest Covid facility in Delhi has started to run out of oxygen on Sunday morning as healthcare facilities across the national capital battle shortages for the sixth day in a row.

 Lok Nayak Hospital director Sureshh Kumar said that oxygen will only last for two hours.

“The pressure in the lines started to drop as we were down to our last few minutes of supply. A tanker reached five minutes ago, but it only has 2 tonnes of oxygen, which will last us another two hours. We can’t give oxygen through cylinders as our beds are connected through a central line and we don’t have them,” he said at 10.30 am.

All the 1500 beds at the facility are currently occupied, according to the Delhi government app.

AAP MLA Raghav Chadha, who has been coordinating with a few hospitals in the capital for oxygen supply, had earlier tweeted that a cryogenic tanker would be reaching the hospital by 10.15 am.

Hospitals across the city – government and private – have been facing an acute shortage of liquid oxygen as demand is high and supply has been hampered, sometimes because of a tussle between state governments and sometimes because of lack of cryogenic tankers.

Delhi does not have any oxygen generation plants and gets bulk supplies from other states.