Fewer SOS calls from hospitals, but new Covid patients facing O2 crisis
Anonna Dutt, Abhishek Dey and Sweta Goswami
NEW DELHI: SOS calls for medical oxygen have reduced from Delhi’s hospitals over the past two days, with most of them now able to maintain stocks till replenishments arrive, but this has also come at the cost of not being able to offer critical emergency support even if they have beds available for fear of not being able to get the oxygen required to care to a larger pool of patients.
With the procurement of more cryogenic tankers to transport liquid oxygen from the central pool, and the creation of more plants in the city to create medical oxygen from ambient air, the situation is likely to stabilise slightly over the week, according to government officials and calculations by HT. Dozens of new oxygen generators are expected to start functioning the Capital, and more tankers are expected to be pressed into service to bring in stocks from large plants in neighbouring states.
“The oxygen supplies are still reaching hospitals just a couple of hours before they run out of their stock. However, the coordination has improved. Still, some smaller hospitals in need of filling cylinders are facing challenges,” said a government official who asked not to be named.
The situation is an improvement from last week, when hospitals – crushed by an unprecedented surge in Covid-19 cases – began running out of their medical oxygen supply. The crisis came to light when GTB Hospital, with 500 Covid-19 patients, received its replenishments with minutes to spare in the early hours of April 21.
The crisis deepened over the next few days, with the worst of it hitting the Jaipur Golden hospital, where 20 Covid-19 patients died after their oxygen support stopped.
The matter reached the courts on multiple occasions, after hospitals exercised all options they had, including by raising alarm on social media. The Union as well as Delhi government were pulled up on several occasions, and have since announced several steps to ease the crisis.
“We are working extensively
What is Delhi’s requirement?
What is its quota?
Why the shortfall? in the offing? on procuring cylinders, which a lot of the smaller hospitals are facing a shortage of. We are also now working on regulating a lot of the refilling stations. Just like we managed to stabilise the oxygen flow in the main hospitals, we will be able to stabilise them as well in the next few days itself. We are working on fixing this to help smaller hospitals resume oxygen supply as well,” said a Delhi government spokesperson.
But while patients already admitted to hospitals may be getting oxygen now, a major problem still persists for new
How much is arriving?
How much help will these plants be?
When will they be set up?
Has the situation improved?
What is the situation for new patients? patients who are in need of urgent care.
Officials in several hospitals said that new admissions have been halted for now.
“The situation is still the same; hospitals are anxious about their oxygen supply. We have had to stop new admissions now because we are not sure when and how much oxygen we will receive,” said an official at one of the biggest private hospitals in Delhi.
“The situation is much the same even though a lot has happened on paper. The problem is that the government has directed the oxygen companies to fulfil the quota of oxygen, but the companies refuse to comply. I had received a refill day before and then again today, which was half the promised supply. We have been told that we will get another supply by tonight, but I do not know,” said Dr SCL Gupta, medical director of Batra hospital, while adding: ”Of course hospitals will have to restrict admissions if there is no surety of oxygen supply.”
An official at another hospital said there was some improvement. “I think the situation is improving slowly, quotas have been fixed and suppliers have been fixed for each hospital by the government. There is still some anxiety and uncertainty; we have experienced this for a week, it will take time for the nerves to settle down. Earlier the distribution was completely haphazard,” said Dr PK Bharadwaj, chief executive director, Saroj hospital and secretary of Delhi Voluntary Hospital’s Forum.
Officials and Delhi Police personnel have also launched crackdowns after receiving reports of black marketing and pilfering of oxygen supplies.
The Delhi government on Tuesday received five cryogenic tankers from the Centre, which were being fitted on to trucks and pressed into service.
The state expects to receive 18 more such tankers from Bangkok, which were scheduled to arrive on Wednesday but got held up due to formalities, according to another government official.
A second significant difference is likely to be when 48 pressure swing adsorption (PSA) medical oxygen generation plants begin functioning in tranches over the next month.
These devices work by drawing oxygen from ambient air and concentrating them to medical grade.
According to an official, the generators being installed by the Union government at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (main), Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, Lady Hardinge medical college hospital, AIIMS Jhajjar, Safdarjung Hospital, GTB Hospital and Lok Nayak Hospital are expected to be in place between April 30 and May 10.
According to official documents, the eight plants being set up by the Union government have a cumulative capacity of 4,700 litre per minute day, which translates roughly to 10MT of liquid oxygen per day.
Among the generators being installed by the Delhi government, two are set to be in place by the first week of May and roughly 19 others by the middle of the month. By the end of April, officials may be better poised to increase critical care capacity, although this will depend on the evolution of the outbreak and if more turn critical.