SOS in Capital, O2 politics at borders
At least 12 hospitals with more than 1,000 critically ill Covid-19 sent out distress calls to the government and over social media on Wednesday, warning that they were hours away from running out of oxygen, with some blaming neighbouring states for blocking supplies.
The crisis pitted the Delhi government against the administrations in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, where officials purportedly restricted trucks from leaving oxygen refilling units, and drew the intervention of the Union government.
Later in the evening, one of the hospitals approached the Delhi high court, which pulled up the Union government for the second day in a row, following which the Centre gave the assurance that it will facilitate unobstructed supply. Hours earlier, the central government increased Delhi’s daily oxygen quote from 378 metric tonne (MT) to 480MT.
The national capital at present has over 85,000 active cases of Covid-19, and 4,632 out of the 4,650 ICU beds for these patients were occupied as of 11pm on Wednesday. The surge in demand for oxygen for medical use is estimated to be around three times what is usual for the city.
“We have been expressing concerns about it. There are two problems here. First, the central government has set a quota for oxygen but, in Delhi, the demand has increased significantly in light of the severe spread in Covid-19 cases...” said Manish Sisodia, Delhi’s deputy chief minister.
The second, he added, was of logistics. “Even the oxygen as per the quota allocated to Delhi is not smoothly reaching Delhi,” he said, citing two instances where officials in Haryana’s Faridabad
and Uttar Pradesh’s Modinagar purportedly stopped trucks from taking the supplies. The problems were resolved with the help of the Union government’s intervention, he added.
“If we have to chase every single truck and ask Centre to intervene, then it’s not a good situation,” the deputy CM said, adding that the pandemic should not turn into “a fight between states”.
Late on Tuesday night and on Wednesday, some of the replenishments reached the hospitals with minutes to spare; in two cases, hospitals switched to temporary cylinders as the tankers arrived too late to refill their systems.
“If the oxygen gets over, patients on the ventilators will die within minutes and the others within a couple of hours. This is a matter of life and death,” said Sumit Ray, medical superintendent of Holy Family Hospital where 375 Covid-19 patients were admitted as on Wednesday evening. Of these, 325 were either on ventilator or oxygen, and oxygen was expected to last till Thursday, 11am.
The Union government acknowledged the problem. “When you deal with such a huge challenge, then at times there is panic and confusions. But the onus and responsibility is on the Union government and state governments to work together and respond quickly,” said Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan, while adding that the deadlock over supply trucks not being allowed to leave from Faridabad was resolved minutes before he stepped into the weekly press conference on Covid-19 on Wednesday.
The Centre said of the total 7,500 metric tonne of oxygen being produced in India per day, 6,600 MT, as on date, is being allocated to states for medical use and assured that efforts are being made to increase supplies in the coming days, and Bhushan said a 24x7 control room has been set up where state governments can raise problems of supplies and logistics.
The crisis prompted a war of words between Delhi and Haryana. “We are being forced to give our oxygen to Delhi. First, we’ll complete our needs, then give to others. Yesterday, one of our oxygen tankers which was going to Faridabad, was looted by Delhi government. From now, I have ordered police protection for all tankers,” Haryana health minister Anil Vij said in the afternoon.