NEW DELHI: Citing acute shortage of oxygen, some private hospitals treating Covid patients on Thursday said they would not take fresh admissions. Various hospitals have requested families to shift their sick relatives or arrange for oxygen. “It is extremely distressing for doctors to say that our patients would die for want of oxygen supply,” Dr Sunil Sagar, chief executive officer of Shanti Mukund Hospital, told media persons, breaking into tears.
Despite receiving fresh stocks of oxygen cylinders and supplies last night, many hospitals on Thursday ran out of the supply and demanded government help. The Shanti Mukund Hospital located in Karkardooma area has stopped taking fresh admissions in the face of shortage of oxygen cylinders. There are about 110 Covid patients in the hospital. The private hospital has put up a notice: “We apologise for not taking fresh admissions in the hospital because we are short of oxygen supply.”
Dr Sunil Sagar said in a statement: “There is hardly any oxygen left in the hospital. We have asked our doctors to start discharging patients depending on their condition. The supplies that we have are meant for ICU beds.” “As many as 110 patients are on oxygen support, 12 are on ventilators and 85 are those who need more than five litres of oxygen. Besides, there are cases of cancer and other diseases. It is a very unfortunate situation,” said Dr Sagar.
Other private hospitals such as Lifeline Multi Specialty Hospital at Laxmi Nagar and Akash Hospital in Dwarka said the oxygen supply that they have would not last for even an hour. “We have an urgent oxygen requirement. We have around 70 patients in a serious condition seven of them are in ICU and on ventilator support. Such patients may die if oxygen is not made available soon. We have announced that some patients must be shifted to other hospitals. Please help us to save lives,” said Mustafeez Mehdi, director of Lifeline Super Specialty Hospital.
Akash Hospital, too, is facing the same crisis. “We have 233 Covid patients and most of them are surviving on oxygen support. Our hospital is going through an acute emergency — oxygen is left hardly for one-and-a-half hours. The Delhi Police helped us on Wednesday with some oxygen cylinders, but the
supply lasted briefly. We are in a dire situation,” a hospital official said.