Hospitals in India are running dangerously low on oxygen, causing panic among medical workers and raising fears that the country’s death toll from Covid-19 will rise sharply as a surge of infections overwhelms health services and funeral sites. India on Friday reported a record 332,000 infections over the previous 24 hours — more than any other country has reported in a single day during the pandemic — as well as more than 2,200 deaths. Many more infections and fatalities remained uncounted, with crematoriums and burial grounds running out of space.
Panicked calls for emergency oxygen have resounded from hospitals across New Delhi, which has some of India’s best healthcare infrastructure, as well as elsewhere in the country.
In a televised appeal, Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal pleaded with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to secure more oxygen supplies for the city. “On behalf of the people of Delhi, with folded hands, I appeal to you that if immediate prompt action is not taken there will be a huge tragedy in Delhi,” he said.
Max Healthcare, one of the country’s leading private hospital chains, sent out an “SOS” message on Twitter, writing that there was less than an hour’s worth of oxygen left at two of its facilities in New Delhi after supplies promised overnight did not arrive.
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, another private hospital in the Indian capital, said it had two hours of oxygen left, adding that 25 patients had died the previous day. It was unclear how many of those were linked to oxygen shortages, but the hospital warned: “Lives of another 60 sickest patients at risk, need urgent intervention.”
Intensive care beds, medicines and tests were also running low in Covid-19 hotspots, while patients were dying for want of treatment, queueing outside hospitals, waiting for ambulances or passing away at home.