Delhi Hospitals Still Running Out of Oxygen

NEW DELHI:
Hospitals in the national capital continue to face shortage of oxygen, with the Sehgal Neo Hospitals and Rosewood Hospitals now raising alarm over their depleting stocks.

In a series of tweets, Sehgal Neo Hospital said: “We need Oxygen. One hour of oxygen left for 70 out of 150 patients on O2 support. Latest govt orders removed our old vendor Seth (LMO tank) and assigned Paramount (only cylinder) who can’t supply capacity we need.”

“We are distressed that we have to do this again. We have received so much help. Our staff is working 24X7, but this is the crisis we have faced every few hours for the last 10 days. Please help us save lives and continue to do our work.”

In a statement, the hospital located at Meera Bagh in Paschim Vihar area of west Delhi, said: “We have allocated over 80 per cent of our beds for Covid patients and have two additional linked hotels with 35 rooms which are fully occupied and are also being used for treatment of Covid patients. We have a total occupancy of 150 patients (including non-Covid patients). 70 out of 150 patients are on medical oxygen support.

“Currently we are operating on a dangerously low supply which can lead to a serious patient incident including loss of life, 13 number of our patients are in the ICU or on ventilator/NIV and their lives will be under threat in case oxygen supply is interrupted.”

According to the hospital, they received a notice from the Delhi Health and Family Welfare Department on Thursday morning, stating that Seth Air Products, who have been their regular supplier for LMO and D type cylinders will not be delivering oxygen.

“Instead, our name has been allotted to Paramount Cryo Gases, Mundka for delivery of Oxygen. When we spoke to Paramount Cryo Gases, we were told that he does not have the capacity to fulfill our requirement of LMO. He will only provide us some D type cylinders which we have to deliver to him for filling and bring back. He does not have any vehicle to transport cylinders to our site,” it said.

Requesting the Delhi government to allocate Seth Air Products as its main supplier of oxygen with immediate effect, the hospital said: “We have oxygen for only 60 minutes with no possibility of receiving LMOs from any vendor. If we do not get your immediate intervention, we will need to ask our oxygen support patients to shift elsewhere.”

Rosewood Hospital in Najafgarh also raised SOS, saying that it only ad oxygen for two hours.

“We have 32 patient of the 45 in hospital on oxygen. We have trying to get oxygen since morning but to no avail,” its Director, Dr Navin Dabas, said.