Under the deluge of second Covid 19 wave, the national Capital has been struggling to cater to patients requiring oxygen as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday pleaded other States to help with oxygen if they have spare.
Delhi’s hospitals faced acute shortage of oxygen and doctors forced to request patients to go back home amid 20 Covid 19 deaths reported in one hospital.
In health emergency situation, Chief Minister Kejriwal wrote to other states’ minister seeking dire help amid the dearth of oxygen. “I am writing to all CMs requesting them to provide oxygen to Delhi, if they have spare. Though Central govt. is also helping us, the severity of corona is such that all available resources are proving inadequate,” Kejriwal tweeted.
Kejriwal said that he would be grateful if the Chief Ministers could provide Delhi with any oxygen, along with tankers, from their state or any organization in their state and requested it to be treated as an SOS, he wrote, “Central Government is also helping us a lot in this regard. However, the intensity of the spread is so severe that it is proving inadequate. Therefore, I would be grateful if you could provide us with any oxygen, along with tankers, from your state or any organization in your state. I would be personally grateful for your support. Delhi does not produce any oxygen. Due to the severe rise in corona cases in the last few days, many Delhi hospitals have run out of oxygen. Daily supplies of oxygen to Delhi are woefully short of our requirements.”
While the government faced heat for the ignoring the Centre’s recommendation to set up oxygen plants, Delhi’s health infra is on the verge of collapse if it does not get 480 metric tonnes of oxygen. While the worrying shortage of medical oxygen is being flagged by several hospitals due to daily caseload of new corona cases registered in thousands, the oxygen shortage caused the death of Covid patients in at least one hospital in Delhi.
According to Delhi government’ health department, in present circumstances, Delhi needs 700 Metric Tonnes (MT) of oxygen every day.
A senior government official said as against 480 MT of oxygen allocated, only 309 MT was received by Delhi , which is the main cause behind the crisis in Delhi’s hospitals. “This follows a continuous trend where daily oxygen delivered is way short of quota assigned to Delhi. Delhi government has also stated that the root cause of this issue was that in the revised allocation plan devised by Central Government, for the first time ever, 102 MT of supply for Delhi has been allocated to plants far away in Odisha and West Bengal, more than 1000 kms away. This was done without Centre making any corresponding arrangement for tankers to supply this oxygen or any consultative process with Delhi Government,” he added.
The official warned there will be still a shortage of 220 MT per day which the government will have to make up for by ensuring proper demand-side management and plugging oxygen consumption wastage and in the time of crisis, oxygen is diverted from low-demand hospitals to high-demand ones.