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New Delhi: Many Indian hospitals were scrambling for beds and oxygen as COVID-19 infections surged to a new daily record on Thursday, with a second wave of infections centred on the rich western state of Maharashtra.
Experts blamed everything from official complacency to aggressive variants. The government blamed a widespread failure to practise physical distancing and wear face masks.
“The situation is horrible,” said Avinash Gawande, an official at a government hospital in the industrial city of Nagpur that was battling a flood of patients, as were hospitals in neighbouring Gujarat state and New Delhi in the north.
“We are a 900-bed hospital, but there are about 60 patients waiting and we don’t have space for them.” Maharashtra, home to the financial capital of Mumbai, began a lockdown at midnight, a move that spurred a rush to stockpile essential items in advance.
Patients at the casualty ward in Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) hospital in Delhi.
Highlights
Ambulances ferried patients to overflowing casualty ward at LNJP hospital
Some also arrived in buses and three-wheeled autorickshaws
New Delhi:
Gasping for air, two men wearing oxygen masks share a bed in a government hospital in Delhi, victims of the country s growing COVID-19 crisis.
From reporting under 10,000 new daily cases earlier this year, daily infections crossed 200,000 on Thursday in India, according to official data, the highest anywhere in the world.
At Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital (LNJP), one of India s largest Covid-only facilities with more than 1,500 beds, a stream of ambulances ferried patients to the overflowing casualty ward on Thursday.
âTreating Covid patients doesnât require the top-level medical expertise of these specialty hospitals where complicated and very advanced surgeries are performed,â said Gyani, speaking before the order was partially revised.
âItâs the governmentâs responsibility in New Delhi to prepare facilities to cope with the pandemic. When they failed to do so, they dumped their responsibility on to private hospitals to cover their own deficiencies. Thatâs no solution.â
Indiaâs healthcare system is a hybrid of free government-run hospitals and private hospitals and clinics. With the government hospitals underfunded, overcrowded and lacking in modern resources, particularly in big cities such as Delhi, private hospitals are seen as essential for those seeking more specialist treatment who are able to afford it. The 14 private hospitals which will now mostly be dedicated to Covid care are among the most popular in the city.
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NEW DELHI Many Indian hospitals were scrambling for beds and oxygen as COVID-19 infections surged to a new daily record on Thursday, with a second wave of infections centred on the rich western state of Maharashtra.
India’s tally of total infections is second only to the United States, with experts blaming everything from official complacency to aggressive variants. The government has blamed failure to practice physical distancing.
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The country has been producing oxygen at full capacity for each of the last two days but will have to turn to imports, with the health ministry saying it was planning to import 50,000 metric tons.