25 COVID patients die overnight at Delhi hospital amid oxygen crisis

New Delhi: Twenty-five critically ill patients lost their lives in Delhi's Jaipur Golden Hospital on Friday due to the severe medical oxygen supply shortage that has gripped the capital.

"At least 215 critical COVID patients are waiting for their sustained oxygen supply," DK Baluja, Medical director at Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi said while raising the alarm on Saturday. It received the last refill of oxygen around midnight, after hours of delay.

"Nobody has promised anything. Everybody is saying we will do our best," the medical director said when asked if the hospital received any help from the government.

Dr Baluja said the hospital has over 200 patients and 80 per cent of them are on oxygen support. Around 35 patients are in the ICU, he said. 

Several hospitals in Delhi, which has no significant oxygen production capacity, made frantic public calls this week seeking emergency supplies. 

The government has deployed military planes and trains to get oxygen from the far corners of the country to Delhi.

"Please help us get oxygen, there will be a tragedy here," Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a conference on Friday.

The crisis is also being felt in other parts of the country, with several hospitals issuing public notices that they don't have medical oxygen. Local media reported fresh cases of people dying in the cities of Jaipur and Amritsar for lack of the gas.

The main problem is that medical oxygen is not reaching hospital beds in time. This delay is a product of where production units are located, a stretched distribution network, and what critics have said is bad planning.

With COVID-19 cases also swamping its neighboring states like Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, oxygen facilities there are over-stretched attempting to meet local demand.

To fulfill Delhi's current needs, additional medical oxygen now has to be trucked in from industrial zones in eastern India.