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Eleven patients died as Oxygen supply was disrupted for five minutes in Andhra hospital

Oxygen crisis

In Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, eleven Covid19 patients who were admitted in the ICU died at a government hospital after the supply of medical oxygen was disrupted, on Monday evening. These eleven deaths came at a time when India is fighting a deadly second Covid wave and shortage of medical oxygen has emerged as a key challenge.

Inside the wards at SVR Ruia Hospital disturbing visuals were captured, which showed the chaos as medical staff tried to save lives.

Also Read: Issues faced by India in dealing with Covid 19 resurge- Is it too late to contain the Second Wave

Families of patients alleged that the oxygen supply was disrupted for about 25-45 minutes. On the other hand, an official of Chittoor district said, “there was a five-minute lag in reloading the oxygen cylinder that caused the pressure to drop”, which led to the deaths.

Also See: New mutants of Coronavirus

The official added, “The oxygen supply was restored within five minutes and everything is now normal. We have connected bulk cylinders and there is no reason to worry. A major disaster was averted because of quick action by the medical staff.”

He further stated that the delay in the arrival of oxygen tanker from Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu had triggered the crisis, adding that the hospital has a capacity of over 1,100 beds. He also stated that there are over 100 patients in the ICU, and 400 on oxygen beds. About 30 doctors were immediately rushed into the ICU to attend to the patients, he further commented.

Also Read: After receiving flak from courts on deficiency of Oxygen, central government possibly trying to blame farmers

Andhra Chief Minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed grief over the incident.

He has directed a detailed investigation to be conducted into the incident.

Jagan has also directed the officials to ensure that such incidents did not recur.

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Results of Covid19 crisis, O2-deficit, & West Bengal election defeat- Denigration & rift within BJP

Amit-shah

The world’s largest political party, BJP is in the middle of an ever-exacerbating quagmire, where it is receiving scathing attacks from multiple quarters like the judiciary, people, party workers, and veteran leaders. Various sections of the society are lashing out at the party which leads the centre. It is due to underestimating the problems of Covid19, and the Oxygen crisis and overestimating the party muscle and the potential of its spin doctors with regards to West Bengal election, which the party lost.

Also Read: Issues faced by India in dealing with Covid 19 resurge- Is it too late to contain the Second Wave

India is dealing with a huge public health crisis due to the second wave of Covid19, and an associated issue of Oxygen deficit. Apart from that, there are questions in the air in India about the status of vaccines, especially after the country supplied around 60 million doses of vaccines to around 70 countries, prior to the onset of the second wave. Critics of the regime currently at the centre have been questioning the vaccine deficiency & unpreparedness for upgrading of health facilities, and unresponsive & insensitive dealing with the Oxygen crisis when advisers within government had forewarned about the present situation beforehand. Higher Courts had to jump in to give a suitable dose of opprobrium to the lackadaisical inaction of the government. In one of the latest developments in this regard, Delhi High Court on Tuesday (May 04) had pulled up the central government over medical oxygen. The HC issued a show-cause notice to centre as to why contempt proceedings should not be initiated after it sought to wriggle out of its liability to supply 700 tonnes of medical-grade oxygen to the national capital. Apart from such flaks from the HC, BJP-led centre has also been heavily criticized by people on its apathy on the Covid19 and O2 situations in Delhi and UP.

Also Read: After receiving flak from courts on deficiency of Oxygen, central government possibly trying to blame farmers

Apart from overconfidence in themselves and underestimating the Covid19 situation, BJP workers in Indore had gone a step ahead in using the Oxygen crisis for their own media spectacle.  On April 17, Indore’s local BJP President, Gaurav Ranadive had stopped an Oxygen tanker carrying 30 tonnes of O2 for hospitals for a photo-op while patients remained gasping for the life-saving gas in the city’s hospitals. This incident delayed the Oxygen supply by hours and was criticized by people across party lines, especially by MP Pradesh Congress committee. MP Congress spokesperson, Neelabh Shukla said while castigating BJP that MP PWD minister Tulsiram Silawat carried out Puja Paath on the O2 tanker when hospitals were waiting for the gas.

Also Read: IndiGo airlifts oxygen concentrators from Thailand, Qatar, & other countries into India

After the defeat of the BJP in West Bengal election, the atmosphere changed dramatically, charged with a wave of seething anger. Now, even the diehard fans of BJP are gradually losing their calm and are questioning the government regarding vaccines and solution to the Covid19 crisis and the Oxygen deficit. Since such ardent followers are not getting anything as a recompense for their support towards BJP, which could have been crystallized by a victory in West Bengal election, the obvious outcome is anger towards the party. An example is a member of BJP IT cell, which had placed Amit Malviya to campaign on social media prior to the Bengal polls. Anshu Thakur is a member of the BJP IT cell, who is currently targeting the government over vaccines. He works as a coordinator of the IT cell (BJP) in Jhanjharpur town in the Madhubani district of Bihar. In one of his Facebook posts, he stated, “This is no time for free food. Give us vaccines.” He posted this on Bihar BJP’s Facebook page in response to a post which announced 5kg of free foodgrain in May and June for the beneficiaries of the public distribution system of the state’s coalition government, where BJP partners with Janata Dal (United).

Also Read: Dark-Side of BJP- A friend in foreign soil- Access to an oversight-immune path of funneling money-Election-Season

In West Bengal, from 2002 to 2006, Tathagata Roy was the head of the BJP unit. After the debacle of BJP in the West Bengal election, he blamed Dilip Ghosh & Kailash Vijayvargiya for the rout of the saffron camp. Roy who has also served as the Governor of Meghalaya and Tripura, on Thursday castigated BJP and levelled allegations of incompetence against Ghosh and Vijayvargiya. As a concluding remark in one of his latest tweets critiquing the Bengal unit of BJP he stated, “Now faced with abuse from party workers they (Kailash-Dilip-Shiv-Arvind) are staying put there (Agarwal Bhawan; BJP election HQ in West Bengal), hoping the storm will blow over.”

Roy, who himself is a civil engineer from IIT and has a law degree added in his vitriolic comment on Ghosh, Vijayvargiya and other current faces of Bengal BJP, “A substandard, uninspired, mercenary bunch of people with no political insight, no analytical abilities, no sense of Bengali sensitivities. Education up to Class VIII and a fitter mistri’s certificate. What do you expect?” He also accused the state leadership of BJP to be clueless about the ground sentiments in West Bengal.

Also Read: West Bengal is a tough battlefield for BJP-an overview from historical, cultural & economic standpoints

All of these developments point to the fact that BJP is now shaken to its core. The triumvirate of defeat in West Bengal election, Covid19 crisis, and the issue of Oxygen is pushing it fast against the wall built on outrage across various sections of society ranging from personnel in the party’s IT cell to a veteran politician within the party.

 

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Oxygen langar opened by a Gurudwara in Ghaziabad amid an Oxygen crisis

Gurudwara in Ghaziabad

A Gurudwara in Ghaziabad has opened an “oxygen langar” for free in the middle of a severe shortage of medical oxygen in the country for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

This comes in a situation when SOS calls and messages for oxygen cylinders and concentrations are flooding social media platforms.

Also Read: Oxygen crisis continues- 20 patients died due to low Oxygen pressure in Delhi hospital

In this crisis-situation, Shri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara in Ghaziabad’s Indirapuram along with an NGO, Khalsa Help International, has opened this unique langar that promises to supply oxygen in its premises to Covid-19 patients till the time they find a hospital bed or home isolation patients whose saturation levels have dropped significantly.

Also See: New mutants of Coronavirus

The Sikh volunteers said that they have also launched a helpline number, “9097041313”, for the people to call and book oxygen cylinder.

One of the Gurdwara volunteers stated, “Till now we have been able to save around 200 lives. We request Ghaziabad DM and VK Singh ji to provide us with 25 oxygen cylinders for 12 hours which will help us save 1000 lives.”  Shri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara is also offering testing facilities to people along with also providing medicine.

Apart from this, Khalsa aid group has provided for Oxygen concentrators in certain hospitals in Delhi facing Oxygen deficit.

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Oxygen crisis continues- 20 patients died due to low Oxygen pressure in Delhi hospital-Gurugram hospitals staring at limited O2 supply

Oxygen crisis continues

The vitriolic flak the central government received from the Delhi High Court & the Supreme Court seemed to have had no effect in shaking away the apathetic condition.

After spending a year exporting Oxygen, GOI is now clamouring for its imports and production as the Oxygen crisis is staring it right in its eyes.

A total of twenty patients who were suffering from coronavirus disease (Covid-19), most of who were admitted to the critical care unit of Jaipur Golden hospital in Rohini, Delhi, died due to low oxygen pressure as the hospital’s oxygen stock ran dry. Officials of the hospital disclosed this in a statement.

Dr Depp Baluja, medical director of the hospital, said, “We lost 20 patients almost all of whom were in critical care unit and on a high flow of oxygen. Our liquid medical oxygen was over by about 10 pm and then we switched over to the oxygen cylinders. There was a drop in pressure and the patients could not survive.”

The hospital was to receive its quota of medical oxygen at 05:30 pm but the supply did not reach it till midnight. Even then, the hospital received just 40% of its allocated quota and is again in a situation of crisis.

In this regard, Dr Baluja added, “We are again in a situation of crisis, 200 lives are on the line. Last night we were at least able to save most patients. We will not be able to do that today. We have exhausted our backup.”  The hospital has probably another 30 minutes of supply left.

To tackle the Oxygen deficit, the Centre is planning to import Oxygen tankers from Singapore, UAE & other places. This comes in a situation when it was found that January 2021 export of Oxygen was 734% higher than that in January 2020, showing a careless indifferent attitude of the government towards the impending Oxygen crisis. The centre has asked the states to revive all closed plants.

Also See: New mutants of Coronavirus

A few days back on April 21, as India reported the largest single-day spike of nearly 316, 000 Covid-19 cases, several hospitals across the country expressed their inability to treat patients in the wake of acute oxygen shortage. On that same day, Max Healthcare, which runs 14 hospitals across the national capital region, had filed an urgent plea with the Delhi high court citing an acute shortage of oxygen. Max had informed the court that it was left with only three hours of oxygen. It said that if that ran out, the lives of 400 patients, of which 262 were suffering from Covid-19, would be under threat.

Also Read: Issues faced by India in dealing with Covid 19 resurge- Is it too late to contain the Second Wave

In Gurugram, the hospitals continue to suffer from an acute shortage of oxygen on Friday despite the district administration saying that it was getting enough supply from two plants in Haryana and Rajasthan.

Dr Devlina Chakravarty, managing director of Artemis Hospital, tweeted the situation at her hospital, stating, “Artemis hospital Gurgaon is in its last leg of oxygen. Last night’s commitment of oxygen replenishment remained unfilled. Only 3 hours to go!!! Please help us urgently (sic).”

She also added, “Every morning we have to make numerous calls to get a 24-hour supply. Doctors and other health care staff are fatigued working round-the-clock. Lack of basic support such as oxygen can break their backs. It is a pity that we are not able to help hundreds of people coming to our ER, gasping for breath. We have stopped chasing the lack of Remdesivir, Tocilizumab, ventilators. We request all now to provide us the very basic uninterrupted supply of oxygen.”

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Maha faces acute oxygen crisis, Centre claims India ‘self-sufficient’ in Oxygen cylinders

Maharashtra health department and the transport department have tied up with the Food and Drug Administration to tackle the severe shortage of oxygen supply at hospitals in the state.

The state has procured tankers from other states to overcome the crisis.

Maharashtra has two main suppliers, Inox Air Products and Linde India, which together produce 800 metric ton liquid oxygen every day. Inox has four plants in Raigad, Pune and Nagpur. Linde has two plants in Raigad and Thane. Transportation of supplies to Marathwada and North Maharashtra takes a day straining hospitals in these regions.

Owing to the sudden shortage, several Maharashtra districts are now in the process of installing their own oxygen generation plants to cut dependence on suppliers. District collectors are working to set up their own oxygen plants in Osmanabad, Beed, Nandurbar and Pimpri Chinchwad. More districts are set to issue tender for oxygen plants.
Rural Maharashtra’s arid regions like Latur are now suffocating too. As coronavirus cases rise sharply across the state, a severe shortage of medical oxygen supply has hit COVID-19 care in the region. Oxygen forms the core of COVID management and a shortage has left both doctors and patients struggling.

While oxygen shortage has hit many parts of the country, Maharashtra with the highest COVID-19 case load is facing a severe crisis. There are over 11 lakh cases in the state and nearly 50 percent of COVID-19 cases are now from semi-urban and rural areas outside of Mumbai, Pune and Thane. Nearly 11 percent COVID-19 patients in the state need oxygen support and this is putting pressure on the medical oxygen demand and supply.

Latur district has close to 14,000 COVID-19 cases. The government hospital currently has a capacity of 6,000 litres of oxygen, of which 5,000 litres are used daily. The crisis has hit private hospitals worse with supplies dipping to a third.

Meanwhile, in another step to tackle the situation, the Maharashtra government said, vehicles carrying oxygen for Covid patients will be treated on par with the ambulance service for the next one year.

“The Government of Maharashtra hereby declares that the vehicles permitted for carrying oxygen for medical purposes shall be treated on par with ambulance for a period of one year during such disaster and thereby treating such vehicles as the vehicle on emergency and disaster management duties,” an order from the Maharashtra government read.

Earlier in a statement in parliament, Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan said the country is “self-sufficient” in oxygen and oxygen cylinders. “The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has procured and supplied 1,02,400 oxygen cylinders to various states and Union Territories so far,” the minister said.