'National emergency'
New Delhi: Vaccination is expected to become costlier from May 1 and several political parties have questioned the government's new policy liberalising vaccine sales and deregulating prices.
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted: "One nation, one party, one leader shouts BJP all the time but to save lives they can't have one price for vaccines. Every Indian needs free vaccine, regardless of age, caste, creed, location. GoI must fix ONE price for Covid vaccine irrespective of who pays - Centre or the States."
In the new policy, vaccine makers will assign 50 per cent of the shots to the Centre and the remaining will be for states and private entities. Only, state governments and private hospitals will have to buy directly from manufacturers at a higher cost.
On Wednesday, the Serum Institute of India (SII) said its Covishield shot would be sold at Rs 400 to states and at Rs 600 to private hospitals.
The Centre will continue to get vaccines at subsidized prices; Covishield is sold at Rs 150 a dose and Bharat Biotech's Covaxin at Rs 206. Till now, the Central government had been supplying vaccines to states free of cost.
Russia's Sputnik V will also be used in India in the next few months.
Sputnik V's maker Dr Reddy's said the upper limit would be $10 a shot (Rs 750) — the global price — but has since clarified that discussions are still on.
The High Court expressed "shock and dismay" over the government's handling of the oxygen crisis and directed the Centre to "beg, borrow, steal" but ensure enough oxygen supply for hospitals.
"How is the government so oblivious of the reality on the ground? You cannot have people die because of no oxygen. You take your own sweet time and people die."
Soon after the Supreme Court decided to take suo motu cognizance of the four key crises with respect to the second wave of the pandemic raging across the country, the Delhi High Court came down heavily on the Centre for not being able to implement orders issued by its own ministry and officials to restore the supply line of oxygen to the Capital.
During the third day of marathon hearings that the bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli have been holding over the Covid-19 situation, the court directed the Centre to ensure that its order for the unobstructed supply of allocated oxygen to states is implemented and also ruled that any official found obstructing the supply would liable to face criminal action.
With several hospitals reeling under severe oxygen shortage amid the pandemic, the Delhi High Court on Thursday observed that the situation in the national Capital has turned 'precarious' and directed the Centre to ensure that the gas is supplied to the city according to the planned allocation and without any impediment.
"We all know that this country is being run by god," observed the bench, which was of the view that all measures should be taken to do away with any obstructions in the transportation of oxygen. "If the government wants, it can do anything and can even make heaven meet earth," the bench said.
It also took on record that Delhi's allocated supply was being blocked by local authorities in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh while ordering the Centre to make sure the full allocation of 480 MT reaches Delhi by Thursday, as promised by the Centre.
The Delhi government had informed the court that while even the earlier allocated amount of 378 MT liquid oxygen was not being allowed to come to Delhi by local authorities in Haryana and UP (where Delhi's closest suppliers are), they had managed to choke supplies to an extent that no Delhi hospital had received its share of supply by the time the hearing started on Thursday.
Over 20 large and small private hospitals and at least six major government hospitals were facing acute medical oxygen shortage with a total of six smaller private hospitals completely running out of their oxygen supply by evening, according to data available with the Delhi government.
While senior advocate Rahul Mehra (for Delhi government) and Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta fought it out tooth and nail in court about why Delhi was not filing an affidavit with respect to these allegations on Thursday afternoon, every 15 minutes or so, one hospital in Delhi was putting an SOS message for oxygen either through the media or simply on Twitter — in the desperate hope that they can save the lives of patients under their care.
And as discussions continued in the high court over the logistics of arranging oxygen supplies to Delhi from various plants across the country, either by road, air or rail, the court said: "What is appearing is that the states concerned are not allowing implementation of allocation order.. that is something you have to handle Mr Mehta."
Following this, Inox, the main supplier for Delhi (140 MT), based in UP's Modinagar submitted that they too were stretched out and that they were being prevented from coming to Delhi by local authorities. The court went on to say that the states were disrespecting the orders of both itself and the Centre and that the Union government would have to "immediately respond".
By this time on Thursday afternoon, two more hospitals, including Apollo (supplier held in Haryana), had put out SOS messages for oxygen and the Centre had already issued orders to all states directing them not to prevent any supply of oxygen. Significantly, the MHA had issued a similar order days ago, but it had no effect on authorities in Haryana and UP. The one issued as the hearing was underway came under the DM Act.
SG Mehta promptly added that the Centre was already on its way to ensuring the tankers reached the city hospitals in need.
Interestingly, as the hearing in the high court stretched on for over four hours, Mehra once again brought up the issue of making available 700 MT oxygen as per their requirement but the court said the first supply of 480 MT would serve Delhi well for the time being.
By this time in the evening, Saroj Super Speciality Hospital, Balaji Action Hospital and one other hospital had intervened, saying they had run out of oxygen. While Saroj had filed the initial plea on Thursday morning, which led the high court to prepone its hearing from 3 pm, the hospital had received its supply of oxygen from Inox just as the court was hearing the matter.
And in an offer that won the praise of the court and SG Mehta, when Balaji Action hospital had intervened seeking oxygen supply, Saroj hospital had said their supply would last them up to a day and they can send some cylinders to their hospital.
The court then went on to direct all hospitals who had intervened to reach out to Udit Rai, the Nodal Officer for Covid-19 management in Delhi for further supplies before adjourning the matter till Monday.
