Several hospitals in the city had to hold their breath on Sunday as they made SOS calls urging authorities to replenish their oxygen supply that would run out within hours.
The Delhi government responded by providing stock from their reserves and added that the situation had arisen again as the oxygen suppliers had not honoured their commitments.
On Saturday, 12 more patients, including a doctor, died as a hospital in South Delhi ran out of liquid medical oxygen.
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Through the day, hospitals like Madhukar Rainbow Children’s Hospital, Sitaram Bhartia, HAHC Hospital and MD City Hospital among others sent out SOS messages on social media stating that they were running out of oxygen.
Aam Aadmi Party MLA Raghav Chadha commenting on the shortage of oxygen at Vimhans Niyati Hospital tweeted, “This is criminal abdication on part of those who were supposed to supply oxygen. However, we are in process of arranging 2MT of LMO for Vihmans from our reserves so that they get through the night. I urge Central Govt to deliver to us the allocated oxygen. We too are raising SOS”.
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Mr. Chadha also responded to tweets from other hospitals saying that the Delhi government was rushing oxygen from its emergency supplies to replenish stocks as suppliers has yet again defaulted.
Aakash Healthcare in Dwarka appealed to government authorities to shift patients to other facilities so that they could be saved as they were running out of oxygen.
“CRY FOR HELP: Received only 5 #oxygen cylinders after running around the entire day, not more than 60 mins left to save lives of more than 250 patients,” the hospital said in a tweet.
During a hearing in the Delhi High Court on the oxygen situation in Delhi, the Centre shared data from oxygen manufacturers for the last three days in which Delhi was given 441.28 metric tonnes on April 29, 491.33 metric tonnes on April 30 and on May 1 441 metric tonnes.
Senior advocate Rahul Mehra appearing for the Delhi government said that the figures were completely away from the data that that government had received. “In-transit is taken by Central government in the data. We don’t consider it until its reaches Delhi,” Mr. Mehra said.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday had said that the Capital required 975 metric tonnes per day and had been allotted 490 metric tonnes out of which the complete supply was not reaching the Capital.
This past week, 20 COVID-19 patients died at Jaipur Golden Hospital and 25 at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital due to the irregular supply of oxygen.