As the city hospitals struggled with a shortage of Oxygen, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national spokesperson Raghav Chadha said the city received 555 tonnes of oxygen on Tuesday, highest till now amid a spurt in coronavirus cases.
Chadha said the High Court has upbraided the Centre and even “compared it to an ostrich”. “Maybe because of this rap, Delhi received 555 metric tonnes (MT) of Liquid Medical Oxygen as against the requirement of 976 MT, which is the highest till now.
While issuing the oxygen bulletin on Wednesday, he said, this oxygen was not made available from regular sources but from an ad hoc arrangement. “We did not receive it from our regular sources but Centre arranged it from other States and gave Delhi the oxygen that was being sent elsewhere,” Chadha claimed.
The Delhi Government received 48 SOS calls regarding oxygen shortage and cylinders not being refilled, and they were addressed.
“We supplied 36.40 tonnes of oxygen to address SOS calls. These hospitals had a total of 4,036 oxygen-supported beds. It means, we helped 4,036 lives,” Chadha said in an online briefing.
On May 1, 12 Covid-19 patients, including a senior doctor, had died at south Delhi’s Batra Hospital after the facility ran out of medical oxygen for around 80 minutes in the afternoon.
The tragic incident occurred in less than two weeks of 20 coronavirus patients dying at Jaipur Golden Hospital and 25 at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, amid the oxygen crisis in the national capital.