12 Covid-19 patients die in Delhi's Batra Hospital due to oxygen shortage

In a shocking incident highlighting oxygen scarcity in the national capital, 12 Covid-19 patients, including a senior doctor, died at a leading hospital here due to oxygen shortage with Delhi High Court warning the Centre to provide oxygen to the capital or face contempt.

As Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal described the incident as painful, Batra Hospital Medical Director Dr SCL Gupta said one of the dead was the head of gastroenterology department Dr R K Imrani, who was under medical care for Covid-19.

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Gupta initially had put the toll at eight while the hospital authorities later updated it to 12.

"We had alerted authorities that we were running out of oxygen. Our desperate SOS did not get immediate response. When we received oxygen, eight patients were no more. Those people could have been rescued. This is not right," Gupta said.

"This is happening in Delhi, the national capital and if it is happening here, you can imagine what is happening in other parts of the country," he said.

Hospital authorities said they had run out of oxygen at 12:30 PM and the tanker came only at 1.35 PM despite repeated SOS before and after it ran out of oxygen.

Kejriwal tweeted soon after Gupta went on record to talk about the incident, "this news is very painful. Their lives could have been saved by giving oxygen on time. Delhi should be given its quota of oxygen. Such deaths of our people should not happen. Delhi required 976 tonnes of oxygen and yesterday (Friday) only 312 tonnes of oxygen was given. How does Delhi breathe?"

Delhi government and city hospitals had been raising the issue of oxygen scarcity in the capital in the past couple of weeks. Earlier, there were reports that 25 people died due to lack of oxygen in Ganga Ram Hospital here though the officials there denied any such possibility.

Last week in another incident, around 20 patients died in Jaipur Golden Hospital in the capital with the hospital authorities attributing it to “oxygen crisis”.

The capital has been witnessing huge demand for oxygen and several people have lost their lives as hospitals and families could not arrange oxygen on time. Serpentine queues were seen at oxygen refilling units while there were also complaints that some of the suppliers were over-charging consumers.

The Arvind Kejriwal-led government has projected a demand of 976 tonne of oxygen daily while the Centre has allocated 490 tonne of oxygen daily. Not for a single day has Delhi been able to receive the allocated quantity of 490 MT oxygen. Every day is an SOS situation for Delhi," Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia tweeted on Friday.

On Saturday, the Delhi High Court warned the Centre that it will initiate contempt proceedings against it if it does not provide 490 tonne of oxygen today.

“Water has gone above the head. Now we mean business. Enough is enough,” a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said while asking the Centre to supply 490 metric tonnes of allocated oxygen to the national capital on Saturday itself or face contempt.

"If not implemented we will have the head of DPIIT shall remain present, in case of non compliance we may consider initiating contempt proceedings," it added.