Prayagraj: At this time of oxygen crisis when a number of people are dying across the country, some patients and their relatives in Uttar Pradesh’s Prayagraj were told to sit under pipal trees to increase their oxygen saturation levels instead of crying at the hospital doors. This inhuman behaviour from police has added salt to the injury of these patients who are already suffering from COVID.
Speaking to India Today, one such patient said that people are being asked to stay in home care instead of crowding hospitals, but they need oxygen even at home and no one’s there to provide oxygen there.
In the wake of the oxygen crisis, several relatives of COVID patients had gathered outside Prayagraj BJP MLA Harshvardhan Vajpayee’s oxygen plant, which the UP government has now taken over. Authorities have been deployed in the plant now to maintain law and order situation.
One person looking for oxygen supply said that everywhere they go, police are turning them away and many hospitals and oxygen plants all have put up boards outside the gates saying there is no oxygen.
He said that from Prayagraj to Lucknow, he has tried all hospitals, including Medanta and Apollo, but no one took him in.
The development comes days after the UP government said that as many as 47 of the 75 districts in Uttar Pradesh, including Lucknow, will get medical oxygen plants under the PM CARES Fund to overcome the oxygen shortage faced by Covid-19 patients.
The state on Thursday recorded 298 COVID-19 fatalities pushing the death toll to 12,241, while the infection tally mounted to 12,17,955 with 35,156 fresh cases. A total of 25,613 people have recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours, while the active cases stand at 3,09,237. So far, 8,96,477 patients have recuperated from COVID-19 in the state.