Twelve Covid-19 patients died at the Shahdol Medical College allegedly due to the lack of liquid medical oxygen on Saturday night.
Dean of the Shahdol Medical College, Dr Milind Shiralkar told the media earlier that the deaths of Covid-19 patients were the result of lack of medical oxygen. However, later, he backtracked from his statememt.
Family members of the deceased Covid-19 patients claimed that the deaths were caused by lack of a stable supply of oxygen.
Shahdol Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Arpit Verma, on the other hand, denied that the shortage of oxygen had anything to do with the deaths. The Shahdol Medical College is only equipped to provide medical oxygen to critically ill patients for now.
Milind Shiralkar, Dean, Shahdol medical college, explained that on Saturday, the oxygen level in the tank was running low and a demand to refill it was also raised. The truck carrying oxygen for refilling the tank was on its way but stopped at Damoh as the truck drivers do not drive post 12 am.
Shiralkar said the newly set up medical college works on dual oxygen supply system — one is a direct supply of liquid medical oxygen to various units of the hospital connected through pipes to an oxygen tank set up at the hospital. As a back up, the 245 odd jumbo oxygen cylinders are pushed into use.
“There were six deaths of critically ill COVID positive patients in the wee house of Sunday but whether it is because of a drop in oxygen supply cannot be ascertained as the hospital has a stock of jumbo oxygen cylinders which were pushed into use as the pressure of liquid medical oxygen dropped,” said Shiralkar.
He pointed out that until 11 am on Sunday, the hospital did not have its liquid medical oxygen tank refilled. “If low oxygen supply was the reason of deaths, the deaths would have been at a much larger scale since at present the hospital has at least 62 patients in its ICU unit alone and a total of 255 Covid positive patients undergoing treatment at the hospital,” said Shiralkar.
Reacting to the deaths in Shahdol, former Madhya Pradesh chief minister Kamal Nath said the state government is lying about the supply of oxygen for Covid-19 patients.
"Has the Government not woken up even after deaths due to lack of oxygen in Bhopal, Indore, Ujjain, Sagar, Jabalpur, and Khargone," asked Nath.
The situation is the same in the case of Remdesivir injections, Kamal Nath said, adding that oxygen must be made available to patients on a war footing.