City hospitals on Saturday continued to raise alarms about low levels of oxygen and some even stopped admissions of new patients.
Hospitals have been facing an oxygen shortage for at least the past seven days. Many hospitals also complained that contact numbers of nodal officers given by the Delhi government for oxygen supply was not responding to their calls.
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital raised an alarm at 11 p.m. on Saturday that the hospital had oxygen for only 45 minutes and sought help from the government. It said that they were in touch with nodal officers but no help has come yet. Finally, an oxygen tanker reached the hospital around 12.20 a.m. There were 130 people in ICU of the hospital and a total of over 500 COVID-19 patients.
Earlier in the day, Batra Hospital, a private hospital, said their oxygen stock was almost zero around 8.30 a.m., the hospital said.
“The oxygen was almost zero and we diverted oxygen from everywhere else to the ICU. We have 265 COVID patients,” said Sudhanshu Bankata, executive director of the hospital, when asked how the hospital managed the situation. At 9.30 a.m., the hospital received oxygen through the Delhi government.
Around 12.30 p.m., Fortis Healthcare also raised an alarm. “Fortis Shalimar Bagh is running out of oxygen. Patients’ lives are at risk. We are running on backup, waiting for supplies since morning. We are currently suspending admissions,” the hospital said in a statement.
“No oxygen! No help! Govt helpline numbers r of no use. Senior admin not responding to calls. In case of any untoward incident, this admin will make us scapegoat?” Dharamveer Solanki Hospital, which has around 15 COVID-19 patients, said in a tweet at 1 p.m.
Several other hospitals sought urgent help from the government. Many hospitals have stopped taking new patients due to the shortage and some bigger hospitals have reduced the number of beds. GTB Hospital, the second largest Delhi government, has reduced its number of beds for COVID-19 patients to 700 on Saturday from 1,500 a few days back, due to low oxygen supply.
On Friday, Rajiv Gandhi Hospital had reduced the number of beds to 350 from 650 owing to low oxygen stocks.
