NEW DELHI, Apr 24: Twenty people died at Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital, their lives ebbing away as the hospital waited for oxygen to be replenished, officials said today, day five of a deepening crisis over the scarcity of oxygen vital to save critically ill Covid patients.
Every few hours, as it has been for the last days, hospitals across the national capital and its suburbs sent out desperate messages of help on social media and other platforms, flagging their dwindling stocks of oxygen. The Maharaja Agrasen Hospital approached the Delhi High Court.
A day after 25 patients died at the Ganga Ram Hospital, one of the city’s biggest and most high-profile health facilities, the court told the Delhi Government to give it one instance of oxygen supply being obstructed and said, “We will hang that man.”
“We will not spare anyone,” the bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli added while hearing Maharaja Agrasen Hospital’s plea over the shortage of oxygen for its seriously ill COVID patients.
At the Jaipur Golden Hospital in southwest Delhi’s Rohini locality, the worst fears came true.
“Oxygen pressure has dipped as we are running out of stock,” Medical Director D K Baluja said as news came in of its 20 patients dying through the night.
He said the hospital has over 200 patients and at 10.45 am, only half-an-hour of oxygen was left.
Hospital officials added that over 80 per cent of the patients in the hospital were on oxygen support and 35 were in the ICU.
At Ganga Ram hospital, authorities struggled to avoid a repeat of the earlier day’s tragedy. The hospital requires a minimum of 11,000 cubic metres of oxygen daily but was left with just 200 cubic metres when a tanker with 1.5 tonnes of oxygen arrived at 11.35 am, officials said. (PTI)
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