New Delhi: As India runs out of oxygen across cities and states, bodies pile up in hospitals, families beg for help on social media and bodies rot in morgues, the Covid-19 virus seems to have hit the country "like a storm".
The rapid rise in cases has stretched supplies of beds in intensive care units, ventilators and oxygen. Testing infrastructure has also been overwhelmed by the second wave, with red-tapism preventing many from getting admission.
Delhi is fighting an everyday battle to keep some 18,000 Covid-19 patients and thousands of other critical patients in hospitals alive minute-to-minute and hour-to-hour. Every morning, small private hospitals in the city start sending out SOS messages of oxygen supplies depleting, making fervent pleas to save their patients.
By afternoon, the larger private hospitals start rationing their supply to make it last till the end of the day and by night major government hospitals start reporting shortages. This cycle has been repeated for three days now, with the smaller hospitals either getting help from Good Samaritans supplying individual oxygen cylinders or police helping them get their supplies.
And every night, the larger private hospitals and government hospitals have fought tooth and nail just for the oxygen supply to arrive in the nick of time — but not before the entire process starts all over again.
On Wednesday, the requests started pouring in from relatively smaller private hospitals such as Mata Chanan Devi and Rathi hospitals. While Rathi had received a few cylinders, it had run out of stock completely on Thursday morning with hospital attendants and patients' kin all scrambling to get oxygen supply to those admitted — cylinder by cylinder. By evening on Thursday, Aakash Hospital in Dwarka, treating 233 Covid-19 patients, of which 75 per cent on full oxygen support, also reported that it had stocks left for just one hour. CEO Kausar Shah said: "Don't know how to treat or serve patients in this deplorable condition. Yesterday Delhi Police helped us get a few cylinders but they will only last for a short time. The entire team is running from pillar to post trying to arrange oxygen. Suppliers have said liquid oxygen tankers are not being allowed to pass through other states."
Meanwhile, even after the Delhi High Court had directed the Centre to ensure that 480 MT oxygen reached Delhi's hospitals by the end of Thursday, hospitals such as the Batra hospital, which was earlier in the day helped by the Delhi Police to get oxygen, also started reporting a shortage along with Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and VIMHANS.
According to sources in the Delhi government, at least six private hospitals had run out of oxygen supply by Thursday evening, of which one was the Shanti Mukund Hospital in Karkardooma, which soon stopped admitted patients after it ran out.
In a desperate plea for oxygen to be sent there, CEO Dr SK Saggar broke down while describing the situation at the hospital. "... Patients will die," he said.
He added that the hospital currently has 110 patients and that it had also started discharging patients, with many running helter-skelter looking for oxygen to keep their kin alive.
Dr Saggar added that the hospital had managed to move the Delhi High Court for supplies, but during the hearing, the court said it must contact Delhi's nodal officer Udit Rai, who was assured in court by the Centre that all 480 MT supplies will reach Delhi by Thursday night.
Meanwhile, as Covid-19 cases continue to rise, the serious lack of oxygen has already started killing Covid suspects even before they get a chance to be examined by doctors.
In Gujarat, the official figure of COVID-19 deaths hover around 6,000 but reports in the local media put the number at more than double.
That beds in all government hospitals in the state are full was admitted by Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel who also holds the portfolio of the Health department.
Gujarat added 13,105 new cases, its highest one-day rise so far, in the last 24 hours, health officials said on Thursday evening. It took the state's caseload to 4,53,836. As many as 137 patients, also the highest so far, succumbed to the infection in the last 24 hours, taking the death toll to 5,877.
Over a dozen new crematoriums set up in Gujarat in the wake of the second wave are operating round-the-clock as the death toll mounts.
The oxygen crisis in Lucknow is now literally leaving Covid patients gasping for breath. Despite assurances from the state government, there is an acute shortage of oxygen cylinders in the state capital. A record single-day spike of 34,379 COVID-19 cases and 195 fatalities pushed Uttar Pradesh's infection tally to 9,76,765 and the death toll due to the disease to 10,541.
Even after being sick, people in Bengaluru have to stay put in long queues for their Covid-19 testing. Reports suggest that people in the city are being asked to return home and come back to the testing sites after a while. There are hardly any staffers available for home collection.
As healthcare facilities across the country struggle to meet the medical oxygen demand, Maharashtra's largest government-run Sassoon General Hospital has decided to commission its own oxygen generating plant.
The state on Thursday reported 67,013 new Coronavirus cases, slightly less than the day before, taking its case tally to 40,94,840. As many as 568 patients succumbed to the infection, taking the toll to 62,479, said a health department official.