New Delhi: With India consistently reporting over 90,000 daily cases of COVID-19 in the past few days, shortages of medical oxygen are becoming increasingly apparent.
The Centre as well as various state governments have expressed concern on this issue in the past few days. On 13 September, the health ministry urged seven states — Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, to ensure adequate oxygen availability in all healthcare facilities.
Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray has also acknowledged that the state is facing a shortage of oxygen but added that the authorities are working towards addressing the shortage.
Many hospitals in Mumbai complained of shortage in supply. "The real problem behind the shortage is the differences between suppliers and private hospitals on prices. Both the parties have to iron out their disputes," said Panvel City Municipal Corporation deputy commissioner Sanjay Shinde. Kharghar-based Polaris Hospital manager Ashok Kumar said, "There’s no regular supply. Our demand is 25 to 30 cylinder of 7,000 litres a piece. But we get less than half of it."
The Gujarat government notification regularise the supply and circulation of medical oxygen from production units across the state came after a scare faced by COVID-19 hospitals in Ahmedabad and Vadodara over the last fortnight over severe shortage of oxygen.
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While there is no stopping of COVID-19 cases in Telangana, the state is also staring at the shortage of oxygen cylinders in the near future. The rise in demand for oxygen cylinders due to surge in COVID-19 cases has left the state short of resources. Suppliers and hospitals have run out of oxygen cylinders as patients continue to suffer.
As the number of active novel coronavirus cases continues to surge in Madhya Pradesh, the state government has admitted in the high court that it is staring at a huge shortage of oxygen, a crucial treatment aid. “A large number of Covid-19 patients are dying and the state can’t close it eyes towards persons dying on account of non-supply of liquid oxygen,” MP advocate general Purushaindra Kaurav said before the Indore bench of the high court, seeking a direction to the Maharashtra government not to discontinue supply of liquid oxygen to the state.
Through an order dated September 7, the government of Maharashtra, one of the chief suppliers of medical oxygen to MP and the region worst hit by Covid-19, told the local industry to reserve 80 per cent of their oxygen for the state’s needs.
Due to rising prices of oxygen and now, not enough availability, the patients being treated for coronavirus infection are breathless. The consumption of oxygen in government and private hospitals has suddenly increased by two to three times, while its production in the plants of oxygen supplying companies is not being able to meet the demand. Due to increasing demand for oxygen, oxygen vendors in Uttar Pradesh have started black marketing.
The needy are being charged up to twice the fixed price. If we take the example of LLRM Medical College in Meerut, then five tons of liquid oxygen was filled in the liquid oxygen plant here which used to run for a week. Now it ends in two days. At the same time, 200 oxygen cylinders were required daily, now 575 oxygen cylinders have to be arranged. Similar is the case with the Medical College of Agra and other major hospitals in the state.
