Hospitals in Delhi scrape bottom of barrel as oxygen supplies run out

At least 15 hospitals across the city had less than five hours of oxygen on Thursday, according to figures compiled by the Delhi government, which kept going back-and-forth with the Centre and neighbouring states to ensure supply.

More hospitals continued to sound the alarm about their dwindling oxygen supply, with some having run out and switching to temporary cylinders while others moving patients to other facilities in other towns before their stocks ran out.

The doctors in the hospital urged patients to leave and look for other hospitals that might take them in.

At least 15 hospitals across the city had less than five hours of oxygen on Thursday, according to figures compiled by the Delhi government, which kept going back-and-forth with the Centre and neighbouring states to ensure supply.

On Thursday morning, HT received an SOS from Saroj hospital in Rohini, which was to run out of its liquid medical oxygen by 10:30 am – which is did. For the next four and a half hours, the hospital plugged oxygen cylinders to their supply lines so that the 140 Covid-19 patients at the facility could be given the required respiratory support.

“We have been managing patients with reserve oxygen cylinders, refilling them and using them again. We need liquid medical oxygen,” said Dr PK Bharadwaj, chief executive director of Saroj Hospital. The hospital had to stop new admissions and discharge some stable patients. Oxygen replenishments reached the facility at around 3pm.

After Max group, Saroj became the second to move court to ensure timely oxygen supply, following which the Delhi high court issued new orders to ensure supplies are made smoothly.

The situation was similar at Karkardooma’s Shanti Mukund hospital, which put up a message stating, “we regret we are stopping admission in the hospital because oxygen supply is not coming.”

With increased oxygen demand, the hospital had been simultaneously using liquid medical oxygen, oxygen cylinders, and a concentrator plant. This left the hospital with hardly any backup.

The doctors in the hospital urged patients to leave and look for other hospitals that might take them in. However, with less than 20 ICU beds available and hardly any oxygen beds, they had nowhere to go.

“We discharged seven patients; the others said we will die on the road anyway, it is better to wait here. This is a horrifying situation, I have never seen anything like this in 45 years of my career,” said Dr Sunil Sagar, CEO, Shanti Mukand Hospital.

The hospital last received half its required supply of liquid medical oxygen at 02:30 am after a delay of three hours. “My staff was standing outside waiting for the oxygen tanker. Every time there was some movement on the road, they thought it was the tanker,” he said. The hospital turned down oxygen to its patients to conserve whatever it could till the oxygen arrived. The hospital received supply just in time after having dipped into reserves.

Metro hospital in Preet Vihar, which had over 100 Covid-19 patients admitted, had to start moving them to its other centres in Shadipur, Noida and Faridabad after it completely ran out of oxygen. The hospital last received half its supply of medical oxygen on Wednesday night. It has been managing by refilling oxygen cylinders since Thursday afternoon.

The crisis has been precipitated by obstruction of supply tankers from Haryana coming to Delhi on Wednesday, which resulted in a critical situation on Thursday, according to a doctor in know of the matter.

“The oxygen reserves at most hospitals are running low because of the increased demand – hospitals are accommodating more patients than usual and almost all the patients need a lot of oxygen. Most hospitals had around 8 to 10 hours of back-up and would receive supply in time. The situation got worse on Wednesday because of several tankers being stopped by the Haryana government. It was a domino effect that delayed supply to all hospital. This resulted in hospitals having almost no reserves on Thursday,” the doctor said.

He added, “It has become like a game of musical chair – the oxygen tankers are being diverted to whichever hospital is running out of oxygen. This means, the hospital that was to receive the oxygen also goes into a crisis,” the doctor said.

The Delhi government estimated that the city would need around 700 MT of oxygen a day due to the increase in the number of patients with Covid-19. On Wednesday, the Centre increased Delhi’s quota of medical oxygen to 480 MT from 378 MT.

Yet, tankers of oxygen that were meant for Delhi hospitals were stopped by administrations from neighbouring states, officials said. “Despite the quota being increased by the Centre, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh governments are stopping oxygen supply to Delhi. Yesterday, Delhi received 177 MT of oxygen against its quota of 378 MT. I urge the Centre to ensure oxygen reaches us even if paramilitary force needs to be deputed,” said deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia in a tweet on Thursday evening.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had to intervene and order all states to ensure allotted quota of oxygen be allowed to be supplied to states other than where the medical oxygen plants are located.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal too said that he spoke to Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar and the Centre to facilitate the passage of oxygen. Of the extended quota of oxygen, majority is from Orissa that might take days to arrive, Kejriwal said, adding that he had a word with the state’s chief minister Naveen Patnaik to facilitate “lifting of Delhi’s quota of oxygen” from the state.

Holy family hospital too received its supply of liquid medical oxygen minutes before its stock would have run out. “We already had all of our staff scrambling to gather oxygen cylinders and attaching it to the manifold in case the oxygen runs out. We have attached 35 cylinders and are waiting with bated breaths,” said Dr Sumit Ray, medical superintendent of the hospital. The hospital received its supply.

Aakash hospital had just 1.5 hours of medical supply when it desperately reached out to authorities on Twitter. “We have 233 Covid-19 patients admitted with, of which 75 are dependent on oxygen. My whole team is running around but we have no assurance so far,” said Dr Kausar Shah, COO, Aakash group. The hospital managed to get 50 oxygen cylinders from neighbouring hospitals and half a tanker of oxygen just in the nick of time.

Action Balaji hospital also raised an alarm when they had about three to four hours of supply. Again they received a tanker of oxygen only after dipping into their reserves, which is like going beyond the red line on a fuel tank.

Even Delhi government hospitals weren’t spared of problems, with Rajiv Gandhi superspeciality hospital in Tahirpur receiving its supply of medical oxygen just 30 minutes before it was to run out. The hospital has nearly 500 Covid-19 patients.

At night, Sir Ganga Ram hospital again raised an alarm that it had oxygen left for five hours of normal use, meaning lesser time if high flow oxygen is given to Covid-19 patients. The hospital currently has over 500 Covid-19 patients admitted.