As many as 20 Covid patients had to be evacuated from the CV Raman General Hospital in Indiranagar in an operation that began late Friday night after a short circuit caused the centralised oxygen line to stop.
The scare comes close on the heels of incidents in Covid facilities in Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh, where several patients died in fires allegedly triggered by short circuits.
The hospital, a dedicated Covid facility, currently has 175 Covid beds and has 80 to 90 patients.
The oxygen supply was cut to 20 Covid patients, whose oxygen saturation was low, in the High Dependency Unit (HDU). Soon after, beds were identified in other hospitals, but patients had to traverse significant distances to get to other health facilities.
Sixteen Covid patients were sent to Victoria Hospital near City Market, which is 10 km from CV Raman Hospital. One Covid patient was shifted to the ICU at Vydehi Hospital in Whitefield, 13 km away, and one patient was put on a ventilator in an ICU in Fortis Hospital, Cunningham Road, 8 km away.
Two patients were shifted to Mahaveer Jain Hospital, Millers Road, 7 km away from CV Raman Hospital.
Dr Bhaskar Vijaykumar, nodal officer in the BBMP East zone and in charge of the zonal control room, said the supply was cut around 10.30 pm on Friday. "We got the information around 10.45 pm-11 pm. Ambulances reached the hospital at 11.15 pm. We completed shifting the patients by 12.15 am," he told DH.
"We got advanced life support ambulances so that patients are not deprived of oxygen during the journey. Two ICU patients who needed it badly were given spare oxygen cylinders. The others were manageable as their oxygen saturation was 80 or 90," he added.
Dr Vijaykumar said they "mobilised 20 ambulances from the CV Raman Nagar constituency, of which 16 had oxygen". "They came in ten minutes. But we had to mobilise 108 Ambulances for advance life support for ICU patients. They came in 20 minutes."
Dr HDR Radhakrishna, medical superintendent, CV Raman General Hospital, however, said the short circuit in the control panel happened at 8.05 pm or 8.10 pm and by 12 midnight patients were shifted to other hospitals.
"By 12.30 am or 12.45 am, patients reached other hospitals," Dr Radhakrishnan said. "We had more than 100 jumbo oxygen cylinders with 7,000 litres compressed oxygen that are used for high flow oxygen but patients were provided small oxygen cylinders with 2,000 litres to 3,000 litres after the short circuit."
Between 12 am and 3 am, the electrical line was repaired and the oxygen supply was restored in the hospital.