Oxygen crisis: Hospitals suffer, Gurugram district admin assures supply

Dr Nikhil Mishra, chief of medical services, Columbia Asia Hospital, said that they have been facing a shortage for the last many days.

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

People carry the oxygen cylinder for refilling in Gurugram. (ANI)

Dr Devlina Chakravarty, managing director of Artemis Hospital, tweeted the situation at her hospital: “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).”

“Every morning we have to make numerous calls to get a 24-hour supply,” she said.

“Doctors and other health care staff are fatigued working round-the-clock. Lack of basic support such as oxygen can break their backs. It’s 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.”

Artemis has 140 Covid patients of which around 50 are in the ICU. Chakravarty said that they raised the issue with the authoritues but had not received any supply till Friday evening.

Amandeep Chauhan, district drugs controller, said there is adequate oxygen supply and they have ensured all hospitals have got required oxygen on Thursday and Friday.

“This is disheartening to hear that hospitals despite getting supply are taking to social media. We have videos of the supply being delivered at their doorsteps. On Friday, we received 27 metric tonnes of oxygen from Panipat and Bhiwadi,” he said.

Chauhan said they were sending supply wherever it was required and a WhastsApp group of all officials concerned, including police, has been created for better coordination.

Dr Nikhil Mishra, chief of medical services, Columbia Asia Hospital, said that they have been facing a shortage for the last many days. “We are getting very restricted supply of oxygen from our local supplier and we are managing with great difficulties. The challenge is at a national level,” he said.

District administration said that it was trying to get maximum supply from Panipat and Bhiwadi. “The situation is slightly better when compared to Thursday. We are now getting regular oxygen supply and the situation will improve within two days. There is no hospital that has not received oxygen supply in the last 24 hours,” said Yash Garg, deputy commissioner, Gurugram.

The family members of patients admitted in different hospitals said that situation at hospitals was not comfortable. Oxygen crisis has restricted admissions at private hospitals. New admissions were stopped due lack of adequate oxygen. “My two family members were denied admission on Friday as the hospitals are barely managing to provide the oxygen to the admitted patients. We were asked to admit patients in national capital,” said Rishi Kumar, resident of DLF Phase 4.

Dr Rahul Bhargava, director, bone marrow transplant programme, Fortis Memorial Research Institute, Gurugram, said oxygen management is becoming tough need to smoothen out so that we can concentrate on patient care.

Gurugram Police commissioner K K Rao said that they created a 39-km green corridor from the Badli bypass in Jhajjar through Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway to the Huda City Centre metro station, and another 38-km corridor from Kapdiwas on the Delhi-Jaipur Expressway in Rewari.