Oxygen scarcity: Small hospitals in Pune referring patients to multi-speciality medical centres

Pune: With the city facing an acute shortage of oxygen, many small hospitals have stopped taking in new patients and are advising patients to look for multi-speciality hospitals

Pune: With the city facing an acute shortage of oxygen, many small hospitals have stopped taking in new patients and are advising patients to look for multi-speciality hospitals.

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“Eighty per cent of small hospitals in Pune district are now advising people to opt for larger hospitals. Smaller hospitals are solely dependent on oxygen cylinders and earlier, they were getting 30 per day, but now they are getting only two or three in a day,” said Dr Sanjay Patil, chairman, Pune Hospital Board of India.

To deal with the situation of increasing Covid patients, many hospitals, since April, had started to take in more oxygen cylinders, but now the situation has changed.

“In initial days, smaller hospitals managed to provide support to bigger hospitals with oxygen, but now it is not possible. In multi-speciality hospitals they have two options - either they have their own oxygen plant or have cylinders. This is not the case with small hospitals,” added Patil.

“Large hospitals are not having a problem, only smaller ones as they depend on multiple cylinders,” said Bomi Bhote, head of the Private Hospital Association in Pune.

“My father’s oxygen level is fluctuating and the hospital in Karvenagar where we take treatment now says that we need to approach another hospital. Most multi-speciality hospitals prefer doing all the diagnosis tests again, so my father will have to face these primary tests again,” said Chetan Kumbhar, a resident of Karvenagar.

“We have been using an oxygen concentrator since the last two days for my aunt and her situation is all good. Our regular doctor is suggesting that we should admit her for a few days in a hospital where an oxygen bed is available as a precautionary measure. His own clinic has a facility, but they are not admitting any patients since they don’t have spare oxygen cylinders,” said Bharat Khadpe, a resident of Bavdhan.