Minister in denial, will tag PM in SOS message for oxygen: Bengaluru hospitals

Even as Health Minister K Sudhakar told reporters in Mysuru on Thursday that the oxygen crisis in Bengaluru has been resolved, private hospitals are gearing up to send SOS messages on social media and tag the PMO, taking a cue from Delhi’s hospitals.

While the minister and the industries department have maintained that the crisis is because hospitals do not have liquid oxygen tanks to store the gas, even larger hospitals with these tanks say they aren’t receiving adequate supplies.

Pristine Hospital Rajajinagar, with 60 patients requiring oxygen, had four hours of oxygen left on Friday afternoon. The situation is similar in 40 hospitals that have storage capacity but are not getting supplies.

Sanjeevini Hospital, Tejas Nursing Home, both in Mahalakshmi Layout; Lifeline Hospital, BTM Layout; Brookefield Hospital, Whitefield; Fortis Hospital, Cunningham Road; Santosh Hospital, Pulikeshinagar; Gayatri Hospital, Vijayanagar and Kanva Sai Hospital, Nandini Layout are among those facing a shortage and have apprised Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes Association (PHANA) of the same.

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Only 50% of oxygen supply at Pristine is being met. It requires four liquid oxygen tanks with 2,000 litres each every 24 hours but was only supplied oxygen worth two tanks on Thursday. Southern Gases, a supplier to the hospital, says it is helpless.

On Friday evening, at quarter to 6, an SOS call for oxygen was posted on Twitter for Ace Suhas Hospital in Jigani. “Last one hour of Oxygen left at ACE Suhas Hospital, Jigani Bangalore. I know patients there. Hospital administration is struggling to get oxygen. 10 jumbo cylinders needed urgently,” tweeted one concerned citizen.

By 9.30 pm, cylinders were arranged.

“If the health minister and MP Tejaswi Surya say 40 additional tonnes have been supplied to Bengaluru alone, then it has definitely not reached the suppliers yet, as they are still not supplying to hospitals. The ministers say the crisis has been resolved but the ground reality remains unchanged. Nobody can have bigger tanks,” said orthopaedic surgeon Dr H M Prasanna who heads Pristine.

We’ve asked our admin to tag the PMO and put it on Twitter that we’re running out of oxygen like Delhi hospitals are doing,” said Dr Prasanna. “We have to tell PHANA members that if they are running short of oxygen, they should tweet and tag the PMO because the state government is not helping us,” he added.

Meanwhile, the state has also been getting oxygen from Kerala even as it exports oxygen to other states from its own plants. R Venugopal, nodal officer (medical oxygen monitoring), Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation, Kerala, told DH, “From April 9, we have been supplying 25 tonnes of oxygen every day to Karnataka. While 15 tonnes is being sent to medical oxygen filling plant of INOX which supplies cylinders to hospitals, 10 tonnes are sent to a private hospital.”

Universal Air director Subasish Guha Roy told DH when his company had requested additional liquid oxygen from JSW, Ballari, apart from the 20 tonnes supplied, the company replied, “We are already running less than 50% of safety stocks and with limited product we have to manage southern states and Maharashtra also. Please plan to lift from other sources also.”

However, JSW senior vice president Manjunath Prabhu said, “We have supplied to other distributors in Bengaluru, not just to Universal Air, although we cannot put a number to the exact quantity supplied.”