The decision had by Thursday left all but one of Delhi’s major hospitals with less than 24 hours’ worth of oxygen,according to Delhi’s Ministry of Health. Some had just six hours remaining.
Supplies that were meant to reach Delhi from Haryana on Wednesday had only partially arrived by Thursday evening.
“We’ve been making internal arrangements for now,but it will become tough to save lives after some time. Some Delhi hospitals have run out of oxygen completely,” said Manish Sisodia,the deputy chief minister of Delhi.
At Holy Family Hospital,one of Delhi’s leading private facilities,an ambulance arrives with a critical COVID-19 patient requiring oxygen every three minutes.
“It’s really,really bad. It was like Lombardy in Italy last year but we have a much worse healthcare system. So many people are dying as they travel between hospitals trying to find oxygen,” said Dr Sumit Ray,Holy Family’s medical superintendent.
On Thursday,Holy Family Hospital was one hour away from running out of oxygen for its 340 critical COVID-19 patients,who would have “died in minutes”,if the delayed tanker from Haryana hadn’t arrived.
“Every hospital is running right on the edge here in Delhi,some have supplies left for just half an hour. If they run out of oxygen that’s it,patients will die suddenly in droves,” said Ray.
Some hospitals in Delhi have begun discharging critical patients because they cannot keep up with their oxygen demand.
“I am not managing patients or my hospital,I am just managing oxygen supplies,I haven’t slept for 36 hours,” said Dr Pankaj Solanki,medical director at Dharamveer Solanki Hospital.
“I still had to discharge eight patients today because I could not provide them with oxygen and tell them to manage themselves at home.”
Across India,the situation is also deteriorating rapidly. On Wednesday,in the city of Nashik in Maharashtra,at least24 critical COVID-19 patients died after their hospital’s oxygen tanker leaked,disrupting supplies.
The scarcity has resulted in thousands of Indians taking to social media to beg for help for their relatives and friends,while oxygen cylinders are being sold on the black market for 35,000 rupees ($604) in Delhi.
There have been separate reports in the Indian media in April of patients dying in at least six other states,including Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh,due to sudden hospital oxygen shortages.
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In an attempt to meet the widespread shortages the national government has now banned the supply of oxygen for industrial purposes,other than in nine essential industries,and intends to import 50,000 metric tonnes from abroad.
The Supreme Court has also ordered the authorities to put together a national plan on how to deal with the shortages by Friday,describing the current situation as a “national emergency”.
“If we do not centralise data and use ambulances to take patients to hospitals with free oxygen we are going to see many more deaths,it is going to get much worse still over the next two weeks,” said Ray.
“I was in disbelief when I saw the doctors crying in Lombardy but now I know why they were crying. It is unbelievable,the absolute devastation around you.”
The Telegraph,London;Reuters