MUMBAI: Maharashtra government has asked hospitals to use oxygen cylinders to provide immediate relief to Covid-19 patients as the state is witnessing a shortage of ventilators. There are only 3,028 ventilators in Maharashtra, which is not adequate considering the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the state. Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray conveyed the urgent need of ventilators in his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He said that ventilators were needed for patients who are facing breathing issues.
“In these cases, the hospital has to either provide immediate oxygen or admit the patients in ICU and put them on ventilators. We urgently need the ventilators particularly in rural areas,” Thackeray said in meeting. According to the state health department, there are 5.63 lakh PPE kits, 10.77 lakh masks, 7982 ICU beds, and 37,875 beds with oxygen available in various government and private hospitals. Dr. Hemant Deshmukh, superintendent of KEM hospital, said that they are focusing on setting up more oxygen supply tanks and connecting them to each and every bed. “We are in the process of setting up 13,000 kilolitres of oxygen tanks.
The supply of oxygen is important in Covid-19 treatment. The government has to support us and our main focus is that no one should suffer due to lack of oxygen,” he said. “If there is no supply of oxygen in the hospitals, then the patient suffers further and the next step is putting them on the ventilators. If we look at the rising number of cases, there are not enough ventilators. This puts the patient’s life under risk. The central government must supply us with more ventilators,” the official said requesting anonymity. He added that they wanted to buy ventilators but the Centre has put restrictions on that also.
Doubling rate of cases rises in state
The doubling rate of Covid-19 cases Maharashtra has increased to 33 days on June 19. The patients doubling rate was 18 days on June 1 and 25 days on June 10. The daily growth rate has also gone down to 2.15 per cent on Friday compared to 2.30 per cent on Thursday. The daily growth rate was 3.85 per cent on June 1 and 2.82 per cent on June 10. In Mumbai’s H East (Bandra-East) ward, the positive patient’s doubling rate was 69 days with a daily growth rate of one per cent. The patient doubling rate is 61 days with a growth rate of 1.1 per cent in E ward (Byculla). In F/ Northward, the doubling rate is 60 days and the daily growth rate is 1.1 per cent. In L ward and M east, the patients double in 54 days and 53 days with daily growth rates of 1.3 per cent, respectively. While in B ward, G South and G North, the patients doubling rate is more than 40 days.