Delhi hospitals gasp for oxygen, send SOS

NEW DELHI: There was no respite from the erratic oxygen supply for the capital’s hospitals on Sunday with several of them sending out SOS messages and virtually begging on social media, saying their stocks would last only for a few minutes or hours.
The Delhi government continued to do crisis management by rushing emergency supplies but the panic kept on mounting in the city.
Around 2:45 pm, Hamdard Institute of Medical Science and Research (HAHC) at Hamdard Nagar began asking its patients to make alternative arrangements as its oxygen supply would get exhausted by 5 pm.
Dr. Ajaz Mustafa, medical superintendent, told TOI that they had approached all officials concerned, including additional secretary (health), SDM, nodal officer for private hospitals in Delhi and transport commissioner, since the lives of over a hundred Covid patients was hanging in the balance. “We sent our staff members with empty cylinders to Palwal and then Mohan Estate but were turned away,” said Dr. Mustafa.
At 4.44 pm, one of the hospital’s doctors, Dr Aqsa Shaikh, sent out an SOS on twitter saying, “HAHC hospital, liquid medical oxygen (LMO) available for ½ hour. Supplier Seth Trader not responding to calls, refused supply of LMO or cylinders till May 3. Last LMO was received at 7 am on May 2. Cylinders will last for 30 mins.” The doctor added that if no help reached them, the Batra tragedy could be repeated here.
At 5:49 pm, Shaikh tweeted they had received the supply which will last for 12 hours.
Batra Hospital — a day after 12 people lost their lives here because of shortage of oxygen — managed to get 2,500 litres from Inox at 11:30 am. However, there are still 317 patients in the Covid ward and the total oxygen available with the hospital is 4,500 litres which it said would last till 12 pm.
“We are playing with fire and don’t know whom to appeal to every day, every hour to get uninterrupted supply of oxygen,” said an exasperated Dr SCL Gupta, medical director. “We have stopped admitting new patients and even promised the administration that we will reduce the number of Covid beds but we can’t ask people to leave immediately. We have sent an appeal to the nodal officer and DM to arrange for supply of 8,000 litres of oxygen which will last for 24 hours, and after that we will relieve some people.”
Meanwhile, a crisis was brewing at a children’s hospital in Malviya Nagar. At 10:27 am, Rainbow Children’s Hospital tweeted, “We have oxygen supply till 12 noon at hospital. We request consistent supply of liquid oxygen.”
Hospital head Dr. Dinesh Vashisht said, “We raised an alarm after the supplier refused to help. There are 80-90 patients in the hospital and 50 are children. These include 15 newborns, at the most two days old and on oxygen support. In fact, two of them are on ventilators. We need 100-120 cylinders every day but there is no assurance from the authorities. Three-four days back, we had faced a similar crisis which is why doctors are under severe stress.”
Reacting to the SOS, AAP MLA Raghav Chadha tweeted at 11:57 am, “We have arranged for five D type oxygen cylinders from Rajghat response point. The government oxygen reserves are extremely limited due to reduced supply to Delhi but we are doing everything possible to avert any untoward accident.” The hospital later managed to get the cylinders but the administration said the supply will last only for five hours.
Vimhans Hospital in south Delhi also issued an SOS in the evening saying they had oxygen for only three-and-a-half hours. “Linde is refusing to supply and doesn’t have stocks for the next seven days to meet our requirement which was earlier being met by Inox and has been assigned to Linde as per a GOI order dated May 1. There are ninety four ICU patients (40 on ventilators) and 41 on oxygenated beds. We need urgent support to save these precious lives,” said hospital CEO Yateesh Wahaal.
After strenuous efforts, a 3,000-litre oxygen tanker was mobilised by the Delhi government at 8:45 pm when the hospital said it would run out of oxygen in an hour. “But our worries didn’t end as there was a mismatch between the plug of the tanker and our requirement. So, we needed alternative arrangements,” Wahaal told TOI in the evening.
Across the town in Dwarka, the situation was grim at Aakash Healthcare in Dwarka which appealed to the authorities to shift patients to other facilities “so that they can be saved”. “CRY FOR HELP: Received only 5 #oxygen cylinders after running around the entire day, not more than 60 mins left to save the lives of more than 250 patients,” a tweet posted from the hospital's handle at 4:32 pm read. The hospital managed to get sufficient supply in the evening.
“For god’s sake please help us to save 100s of patients admitted in our hospital. We are struggling to get oxygen supply to keep them alive,” mentioned Holy Family Hospital in its tweet at 1:08 pm and tagged the Prime Minister’s Office and union health minister among others.
The Delhi government has been demanding 976 metric tonnes of oxygen from the Centre against the existing allotted quota of 590 MT. On Friday, the city administration received just 312 MT, an official said.
At Sitaram Bhartia Hospital, provision for oxygen cylinders was made to provide relief for two-three hours at 6:10 pm but soon the hospital took to twitter once again. “We have still not received liquid oxygen and are in an extremely tight situation,” tweeted the hospital at 8:19 pm. There are around 45 Covid patients admitted here. The hospital was getting ready for another long night.