Bihar Congress slams Nitish Kumar government’s handling of Covid-19

Patna high court pulled up the state government on Monday saying it lacked expert advice, trained manpower, adequate oxygen and life saving drugs to deal with the second wave of the pandemic.

The Congress party has accused the Bihar government led by chief minister Nitish Kumar of failure to manage the Covid-19 crisis, which has found the health infrastructure in the state crumbling under pressure with shortage of beds, medicines, oxygen support and trained manpower reported across the state.

Patna: Family members mourn the death of a Covid-19 victim at Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), during the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic on Monday.

“The state government is unable to draw its quota of oxygen, allotted by the Centre, for want of storage facility. This often led to a serious crisis of oxygen for patients admitted in hospitals,” said Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee (BPCC) president Madan Mohan Jha.

Chairman of BPCC media department, Rajesh Kumar Rathore alleged black marketing of oxygen cylinders and drugs like Remdesivir had gone beyond government’s control. “A 40-kg cylinder of oxygen is being sold at ₹50,000 to ₹1 lakh, as hospitals are grappling with oxygen shortage,” he said.

Several hospitals in Bihar have reported shortage of oxygen and medicine such as Remdesivir over the past few days. Patna high court pulled up the state government on Monday saying it lacked expert advice, trained manpower, adequate oxygen and life saving drugs to deal with the second wave of the pandemic, which has left hundreds dead and thousands others scrambling for hospital beds in the state.

A senior officer of the health department, pleading anonymity, said the state was able to get 120-135 MT of medical oxygen per day against the current requirement of nearly 250MT. “There is a serious problem in getting the centrally allocated quota of oxygen, as not a single hospital has cryogenic storage-- required for storing liquid medical oxygen,” he said.

The centre has allocated 214MT of medical oxygen to Bihar every day, out of this, 34 MT is to be created from the Air Separation Units (ASU) in the state, he added.

Covid patient Rita Dubey, who was admitted to the Nalanda Medical College Hospital (NMCH) in Patna in a serious condition, was prescribed Remdesivir injections, which retailers claimed to be out of stock. Her son Prashant Dubey claimed he was forced to buy two vials of the life-saving injection of 100mg potency for ₹56,000 from the black market. The drug carries MRP of ₹2,800 per unit.

“Other crucial drugs like Doxy 100mg and Azithromycin 500 are also out of stock at medicine retail outlets. Subsequently, I had to pay double the cost of these medicines,” alleged Dubey.

Health minister Mangal Pandey didn’t reply to questions over the alleged shortage of oxygen, oxygenated beds and common antibiotics.

Criticising the state government over its alleged failures, BPCC president Madan Mohan Jha said a Covid task force made up of Bihar Pradesh Youth Congress (BPYC) members had helped over 250 Covid patients in accessing medical facilities in the month of April. BPYC officer bearers said they had arranged ICU beds for over three dozen Covid patients and distributed more than 100 oxygen cylinders in the past one month.