22 Covid patients die after Nashik oxygen tank leak
NASHIK/MUMBAI: Twenty-two COVID-19 patients, who were either on ventilator or oxygen support, suffocated to death on Wednesday when their oxygen supply stopped suddenly because of a malfunction in the main storage at a civic-run hospital at Nashik in Maharashtra, officials said.
The incident occurred in the afternoon at Dr Zakir Husain Hospital in the Dwarka area of the city.
Confusion prevailed in the evening over the exact number of fatalities in the incident. While District Collector Suraj Mandhare claimed that two more COVID-19 patients at the hospital succumbed in the evening due to the oxygen supply issue, Nashik Divisional Commissioner Radhakrishna Game said late night that the death of these two patients was not linked to the leakage incident.
The Maharashtra government announced a probe by a seven-member committee into the incident and Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said that financial assistance of Rs five lakh would be provided to the families of each victim.
The disruption of medical oxygen supply was caused by leakage from a storage plant, officials said.
An official said the incident occurred when oxygen was being filled in one of the tanks from a tanker, which disturbed the supply to the patients who were on ventilators as well as to those dependent on oxygen for breathing.
The Nashik Municipal Corporation (NMC) issued a statement in the evening, in which it said that a total of 157 patients were undergoing treatment in the 150-bed COVID-19 hospital when the incident occurred. Of these, 131 patients were on oxygen support, 15 on ventilator support and 61 were critical.
The NMC said that the deceased were in the age group of 33 to 74 years. While 10 of the victims were women, 12 were men.