Oxygen shortage at Delhi's Batra Hospital; 8 patients including doctor die

Delhi's Batra Hospital on Saturday told the Delhi High Court that it ran out of oxygen supply for more than an hour, resulting in the deaths of eight COVID-19 patients, comprising a doctor.

The hospital told the high court, "We didn't get oxygen on time. We ran out of oxygen at 12 noon. We got oxygen at 1:35 pm. We have lost lives, including one of our own doctors."

The hospital said in a statement that eight of its patients, including a doctor, passed away on Saturday due to lack of oxygen.

Also Read: COVID-19 in India: Where oxygen concentrators are coming from

"We ran our operation for almost an hour without oxygen supply," said Dr. SCL Gupta, Medical Director, Batra Hospital.

Batra Hospital, in an SOS message, had earlier said that the oxygen would last for another 10 minutes and that "326 patients are admitted at this hospital."

"Our SOS cryogenic tanker carrying Liquid Medical Oxygen is reaching Batra Hospital within 5 minutes. Their regular supplier of oxygen has defaulted yet again due to alleged 'lack of oxygen supplies' and is being pulled up," said Delhi minister Raghav Chaddha later.

Also Read: 'Anyone obstructing supply won't be spared': Delhi High Court on oxygen shortage

Although oxygen was later supplied to the hospital, it said by the time the supply reached, eight patients had already died. Meanwhile, the NKS Super Specialty Hospital has told the high court that they are in a dire situation as well.

The High Court has instructed all medical superintendents, owners and directors of all Delhi hospitals and nursing homes to furnish complete details of all coronavirus patients admitted at their facilities from April 1 onwards. The court added that the information should also mention the position of the bed occupied by the patient and the discharge date. Amicus Rajasekhar Rao has been directed to ready a format for the hospitals to submit the said information within four days.

The Delhi High Court said on Saturday that hospitals should learn from their experiences concerning oxygen paucity during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and establish plants for generating the life-saving gas.