O2 shortage breaks Covid emergency wards

New Delhi: Even as hospitals in Delhi are fighting a desperate daily battle to get medical oxygen for the almost 18,000 Covid-19 patients already admitted to their facilities and somehow getting by for the last one week — day by day, Covid emergency and casualty wards across hospitals have completely broken down due to a lack of oxygen supplies, with patients, their kin, doctors, and infrastructure buckling every day — leading to Covid-19 suspects dying of breathlessness even before they can be examined for admission.

Emergency doctors, swamped with suspects lining up outside their rooms, which are already crowded with two-three patients sharing stretchers, have said that all they can do at this point is to either admit the patient into the hospital, which would be pointless as the beds also didn't have an oxygen supply or refer them to another hospital.

A senior doctor inspecting patients at the Holy Family Hospital on Wednesday evening said, "We are compelled to do this otherwise how will we manage the upsurge in Covid patients."

But there are also daily instances where patients, their kin and doctors are being pushed to their brink. At 3:30 am on Wednesday, outside the Covid emergency room at GTB Hospital, 54-year-old Mithila had just managed to enter the doorway but had lost consciousness by that time.

Her daughter-in-law said they had been waiting to get in since at least 11:45 pm.

When she finally managed to get a doctor to look at Mithila, an argument ensued between the doctor and the patient's family. "We kept telling you she needed oxygen. She did not have oxygen while waiting. Why could you not have sent someone to look at her."

As the argument escalated, the doctor snapped, "What can I do ma'am? There is no oxygen, there is no medicine for this. I don't know what I can do anymore. Should I take out my lungs and give it away?"

By this time, GTB Hospital had received oxygen from INOX but by the time the first cylinders were sent to the critical patients already admitted to the hospital, at least three people had died waiting for Covid emergency doctors to examine them.

But even as the emergency ward started clearing patients quickly after oxygen was restored to the emergency ward around 3:30 am, on Wednesday morning, the line outside the ward grew and at least one more patient had died waiting for oxygen. Inside the ward, each stretcher is shared by at least two patients.

In fact, with the initial ward already full, the GTB hospital had to convert their vaccination centre into a makeshift Covid emergency ward and the vaccination centre was moved to a different location.

Meanwhile, at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital's Covid emergency ward around 12 am on Wednesday, Millennium Post found all ventilators to be occupied and no normal or Covid beds available and soon would run out of oxygen. And while the hospital managed to arrange emergency supplies by around 3 am, at least one person had collapsed waiting for oxygen.

At around 2 am, an elderly patient was rushed inside the hospital in a car by her relatives and when the attendants at the Covid emergency ward asked if she's a Covid patient, the relatives told them that she was not but pled with them to admit her.

The elderly woman, gasping for breath without oxygen, would collapse any moment, her relatives implored doctors as they cried for help.

When the attendants at the ward declined to admit the patient after much pleading her family convinced them to take her to the normal ward on a stretcher, where she breathed her last before she could get oxygen, according to those who witnessed the scene.

At least four patients were waiting outside on oxygen supply on beds beside the reception area in order to get a proper bed inside the hospital. From 12 am to 3:30 am, five to six patients kept flocking in along with their relatives in cars in order to enquire about bed availability.

Moreover, by Wednesday afternoon, when medical oxygen was again seen running out quickly at Ganga Ram and several other top hospitals, including Manipal, Max, and several others, at least 30 patients were on the waiting list to enter the ward, a lot of whom were sitting outside in chairs with temporary oxygen cylinders on. And there were now eight patients waiting to be admitted by the reception area on stretchers.

One of the patients, a 37-year-old man, waiting to get admitted inside the Covid emergency, was kept inside an ambulance for more than an hour at around 3 pm. From Ghaziabad, the man had mild symptoms but was having trouble breathing. His wife said that she had called Ganga Ram hospital to seek beds and she was told to come here and that her husband would be admitted immediately.

"They have been telling me to wait for an hour but no other information," she said, finally deciding to hunt for beds in other hospitals.

By early evening, St Stephen's Hospital had barely two hours of oxygen left as the Covid emergency ward had stopped examining patients due to no available facilities to care for them. The eight patients hoping to be admitted were referred to other hospitals.

On oxygen supply, one doctor said that there is just about enough for the admitted patients and that the hospital is stretched out on resources for those coming in through the emergency ward. A couple of patients flocking in to enquire about beds were being turned away due to a lack of beds and oxygen. "It's the situation of all hospitals, you'll find beds nowhere," she said.

While both Ganga Ram and St Stephen's were assured of restored supply by Wednesday evening, the Covid emergency at Holy Family hospital saw a choc-a-bloc situation with patients and their relatives with several persons constantly arriving to inquire about the availability of beds. A registration official said for nine days he has been telling people there is no vacancy at the hospital.

"Neither Covid beds nor temporary beds in emergency are available here," the person said.

At around the same time, one of the patients was brought out of an ambulance,

gasping for breath and was awaiting admission into the ward when suddenly his situation turned worse and he was rushed inside where another patient was somehow shifted and he was given urgent medical care.

Out of a total of 20 temporary beds in the emergency ward, 18 were occupied while around 10 were sitting inside the ward on chairs with temporary oxygen support, waiting for a temporary bed. A security supervisor outside the hospital said that the footfall of patients increases during the evening hours and the emergency ward is filled with patients and their relatives.

At around 2 am, when oxygen tankers at GTB hospital were being re-filled for

supply to the admitted patients, there were at least 11 patients waiting on stretchers outside the emergency ward, which was already teeming with patients, their kin and doctors — so much so that doctors were unable to make space to get out and look at the waiting patients.

Significantly, doctors and Covid emergency ward healthcare workers across hospitals that Millennium Post visited have consistently maintained that they are stretched out on medical oxygen to the point that they are just about fighting to get enough for admitted patients.