BENGALURU: Bhavika Mayuri (name changed) who was asked to leave Specialist Hospital here in the city on Friday after the hospital ran out of medical oxygen, on Saturday boarded an ICU ambulance which was to take her to a hospital in Chennai. A number of other less severe patients left the hospital on Friday, but Bhavika managed to remain there till Saturday, until arrangements were made for her travel.
Her efforts to contact police to ensure the hospital did not forcibly evict her, had yielded no results because the hospital reportedly told her outright there was no more oxygen left. This is the situation in many other hospitals in Bengaluru. Bhavika had checked with other hospitals in the city, but was told that they either had no beds or oxygen, or would soon run out of oxygen supply.
A traumatised Bhavika told The New Sunday Express that if she does not get oxygen, it could be fatal for her, considering the lung damage she had suffered due to Covid-19. She said she might need oxygen for another two weeks, as advised by her pulmonologist.
Luckily, Bhavika managed to get a bed in a Chennai hospital with the help of her father, a retired diplomat. She also got an ICU ambulance to see her through the sixhour journey to Chennai, and will need about 2-3 litres of oxygen to sustain her journey.
Recalling her brush with death, Bhavika says she had to wait for six hours before she was admitted on April 7, and her oxygen saturation level had dropped to 67. Getting each of the nine vials of Remdesivir was an ordeal, and entailed a number of phone calls and much anxiety.
Bhavika said that each vial came from a different place, including Coimbatore and Madurai. She recalled in horror how she had watched and heard from hospital staff, during her two-week stay, of many people dying without oxygen or an ICU bed. Bhavika was working in Bengaluru with an multinational company, and lived alone.