Covid-19: As politicians bicker, families recall the pain of losing relatives to oxygen shortage scroll.in - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scroll.in Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Delhi government introduced price caps on Covid-19 care at private hospitals, but failed to enforce them. This put the city’s residents, already struggling with trauma and loss, under tremendous financial strain.
What it takes to find and fill an oxygen cylinder in Delhi – nothing less than nerves of steel
What it takes to find and fill an oxygen cylinder in Delhi – nothing less than nerves of steel
India’s second Covid-19 wave has overwhelmed hospitals and left families scrambling for life-saving oxygen for their loved ones. 5 hours ago Photo of a relative of a coronavirus patient with an oxygen cylinder in Ajmer, used for representation. | PTI
On a sweltering May afternoon, Lalit Kohli stood in a queue outside the gate of an oxygen refilling plant in the industrial area of Mayapuri, West Delhi, lugging a 47-litre empty cylinder with him. He looked exhausted. He had just driven 110 km from Shamli, Uttar Pradesh.
A non-rebreather mask I bought for my family. | Supriya Sharma
It is an unwritten rule in journalism that hard-hitting news investigations do not make for good Sunday reading. But April 18 was no regular Sunday. A ferocious tidal wave of coronavirus was crashing over India and breathless people were dying, unable to find a hospital bed or oxygen.
My colleagues and I had spent a few days investigating India’s oxygen crisis. One of the startling facts we found was that it had taken the Narendra Modi government eight months after the pandemic began to invite bids for 162 oxygen generation plants. Most still weren’t up and running.