Day after 26 die of O2 dips, supply fails again at Goa hospital

PANAJI: A day after 26 Covid-19 patients died at Goa Medical College (GMC) due to a dip in oxygen supply, its shortage continued to cripple the state’s premier government hospital on Wednesday.
After Tuesday’s tragedy, CM Pramod Sawant had said he would “make sure” not a single Covid patient dies due to shortage of oxygen. However, doctors and relatives of patients said that in the early hours of Wednesday, GMC’s wards 122, 113 and private wards ran out of the central flow of oxygen, the eighth consecutive time it has happened.
With the doctor to patient ratio already stretched thin, physiologically-compromised patients with severe Covid pneumonia bore the brunt of the desaturation in SpO2 levels.
The SOS calls and messages began from 12:20am. “Yesterday’s (Tuesday) situation seems to be repeating again. There is a severe oxygen shortage at GMC right now, wards 113 and 122. Please arrange for oxygen cylinders on time,” said the relative of a patient in a post on social media.
One of those who lost their lives is a young woman in her late thirties, who was left gasping for oxygen in ward 122 at around 2:20am. The patient’s brother called up a helpline asking for an oxygen cylinder.
“He told me that she was gasping for oxygen. The brother asked for a cylinder from the volunteers, but they were not allowed to refill the cylinders because of the North Goa collector’s directions,” said Goa Velha resident Devsurabhee Yaduvanshi.
She said that she felt helpless as they could not help the young lady. “Around 10:45am, he messaged me again and said that she passed away. The lack of oxygen exacerbated her condition even further,” said Yaduvanshi.
A doctor told TOI said that an elderly woman’s SpO2 levels dropped after the central line oxygen flow petered out. The other Covid-19 patient in the room, who had an oxygen cylinder, shared the cylinder to stabilise the elderly woman.
Interestingly, wards 144 and 145, which reported oxygen shortages over the past few days, faced no such problems. Sawant had interacted with relatives of patients who are admitted in the two wards.
GMC dean Dr Shivanand Bandekar admitted before the high court of Bombay at Goa that there is a severe oxygen crunch. Each patient requires two to three oxygen cylinders per day, based on the severity of the infection.
So, while GMC requires anywhere between 860 and 930 cylinders per day to sustain patients, it received just 330 to 630 oxygen cylinders per day over the past five days.