Working overtime, not seeing family members for days, doctors recount struggle during Covid fight indiatimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from indiatimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Covid-19: What will it take to make India breathe?
(Reuters file)
An in-depth look at the oxygen crisis across the country’s length and breadth due to the Covid-19 scourge.
The ‘apocalyptic’ second wave of Covid-19 outbreak in India has touched a grim milestone of 20 million (m) cases and the worst is not yet over, as daily infections are expected to peak in the coming weeks in the world’s second-most populous country.
The country’s overtaxed healthcare system has broken as the contagion has overwhelmed across some of the most populous states.
Is India losing its battle to breathe?
Doctors said either there should be designated refilling stations for hospitals or they would have to halt admissions.
NEW DELHI: Hospital administrators haven’t been able to breathe easy these past few days and it is unlikely they will do so soon. Oxygen supply is erratic and uncertain. On Monday, the Institute of Brain and Spine in Lajpat Nagar had only an hour’s oxygen supply and around 11am asked the patients to shift somewhere else. At least six other small hospitals sent out distress calls either online or through the media.
Doctors said either there should be designated refilling stations for hospitals or they would have to halt admissions. “We are supposed to save lives, not be engaged forever in searching for oxygen. Who will care for the patients when our focus is on finding oxygen?” said a doctor from one of the seven hospitals who flirted with disaster on Monday.
Highlights
Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, private suppliers are charging Rs 30,000 for one oxygen cylinder worth Rs 2,000
All this comes at a time when several states have been pleading with the Centre to ramp up the medical oxygen supply
The states have also demanded the Govt to increase its quota amid a high number of unfortunate deaths due to oxygen shortage
NEW DELHI: As COVID-19 infected people grasp for breath due to acute shortage of medical oxygen across the country, the prices of oxygen cylinders have soared in the local market with hoarders trying to make a profit from people’s misery.
Twelve Covid-19 patients, including a senior doctor, had died at a south Delhi hospital south Delhi hospital after the facility ran out of medical oxygen for around 80 minutes on Saturday afternoon. (PTI PHOTO)
NEW DELHI: Authorities at several private hospitals in the national capital on Monday scampered to refill their oxygen stocks as the lives of many Covid-19 patients hung by a thin thread amid an acute shortage of the life-saving gas.
Dr Pankaj Solanki, head of 50-bed Dharamveer Solanki Hospital in Rohini, said he is tired of making SOS calls and feels dejected . Most of the times, there is a crisis (of oxygen). It has become difficult to manage even 10 patients now, he said.