New Delhi: Covid-19 continues to wreak havoc across India as 25 more patients have died in Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) in the last 24 hours.
“Low pressure oxygen” could be the reason for the deaths even as 60 other patients admitted at the hospital are at risk, media reports said quoting officials of the hospital.
A senior official at the hospital was quoted saying that “ventilators and BiPAP machines are not working effectively.”
Medicos in the hospital, as such, are switching to manual ventilation in ICUs and the emergency department, the official added.
“Lives of another 60 ‘sickest’ patients at risk. Major crisis likely,” the official said.
Those who died were the “sickest” patients at the hospital, reports said.
Delhi is facing an unprecedented oxygen crisis as the national capital logs thousands of COVID-19 cases each day.
SGRH, reports said, has “sufficient balance of oxygen and a tanker has reached the hospital, which will fill up the storage capacity”.
The tanker reached the hospital around 9.20 am. The stock can last up to five hours, depending on the consumption, an official said.
“All we need is uninterrupted and timely supply of the oxygen,” SGRH Chairman Dr DS Rana was quoted saying.
Located in central Delhi, the hospital, at present, is treating over 500 coronavirus patients. Of them 150 are on high flow oxygen support.
Meanwhile, Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal urged PM Narendra Modi to facilitate the airlift of oxygen from West Bengal and Odisha to resolve the shortage in Delhi.
“PM Sir, please, do make a phone call to the Chief Minister of the state where maximum trucks (tankers carrying oxygen) are being stopped so oxygen can reach Delhi,” he said according to NDTV.