Panaji: Lack of expert drivers manning trucks ferrying oxygen has led to the oxygen shortage crisis in Goa's top hospital, Goa Medical College, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said on Tuesday, even as Health Minister Vishwajit Rane claimed that 26 persons died within four hours due to shortage of oxygen at the apex health facility.
Rane, who has been at loggerheads with Sawant over control of the state's Covid management apparatus, has now urged the Bombay High Court to probe the oxygen shortage issue at the Goa Medical College and take over the Covid management system at the health facility.
Earlier on Tuesday, Rane said that 26 patients admitted to a Covid ward at the hospital, had died between 2 am and 6 am on Tuesday.
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"I request the High Court to check if there is mismanagement or shortage and bring out a white paper using experts... High Court should take over Covid management of GMC," Rane said, adding that the key issue was not mismanagement, but a shortage of oxygen which led to the deaths. "We need 1,200 (jumbo) cylinders, but yesterday we got only 400," Rane also said.
Sawant on Tuesday morning visited the Covid ward, which witnessed the more than two dozen fatalities, insisted that it was not oxygen shortage that led to the deaths. The cause of deaths Sawant claimed was because oxygen tanks could not reach the patients in time.
Sawant also met patients and relatives of admitted patients at the Covid ward, who complained about a regular drop in the oxygen supply through nights.
