Tamil Nadu: Small hospitals struggle as Covid-19 cases increase

CHENNAI: Hospitals scrambled for supplies of lifesaving oxygen on Friday as Tamil Nadu reported a spike in Covid-19 cases and deaths, straining the state’s resources, overwhelming the healthcare system and leaving doctors and nurses exhausted.
In Chennai, there were tense moments overnight at the VHS hospital, which has more than 50 oxygen-dependent patients, 30 of them in the ICU, as oxygen supplies fell to dangerously low levels — just enough for 20 minutes — a little before midnight. The oxygen truck arrived in the nick of time and supplied 1,000 litres of liquid medical oxygen.

Ten hours later, tension mounted again. Nurses and technicians dragged out 44 mobile cylinders to the patients’ bedside. Hospital authorities were sitting at the edge of their seats because the supply truck was getting delayed again. The tank lasts for about 10 hours. “I had 50 lives at stake. Each of these cylinders last between 5-7 minutes depending on how much oxygen a patient requires,” said secretary Dr S Suresh.
The hospital management briefed patients’ relatives about the situation, called other hospitals asking if they would take in critical patients, and made a desperate call to the state’s unified control room. The government sent a dozen additional cylinders within a few minutes. “There is no other buffer. We used them till the oxygen truck came,” Dr Suresh said. The staff were waiting for more than six hours to refill empty cylinders from an industrial plant in Gummidipoondi.
Many hospitals across the city reported a similar crisis in the past three days. Over the past 48 hours, 24 of the 70 beds in VHS are vacant. Several other hospitals – including some major institutions such as MIOT Hospitals – have stopped admitting patients and some of them refer patients admitted under them to GHs if their condition deteriorates.
Over the past few days, the daily requirement for oxygen has crossed 419 tonnes in Tamil Nadu. The state has diverted industrial oxygen and called for manufacturers to ramp up production. On Friday, the state received 80 tonnes of oxygen by train from Odisha. The train left Container Corporation of India Depot at Tondiarpet again at 10am on Friday and is expected to return on Monday with oxygen from Kalinganagar in Odissa. “We have been allotted so much by the Centre. We are requesting them to give us more,” said health minister M Subramanian.
While he reiterated that the state will initiate action against private hospitals referring patients to the GH, doctors said they were left with no option.
IMA state secretary A K Ravikumar said, “Doctors across hospitals, particularly small ones, tell us stories of how they wait with bated breath for refills. If patients volunteer to get oxygen concentrators we encourage them.” Several hospitals in the city too asked patients to bring oxygen concentrators if they require just 5 litres of oxygen a minute.