New Delhi: Amid the severe medical oxygen shortage in the Capital, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday urged hospitals in Delhi not to raise alarms unnecessarily over oxygen shortage and appealed to the media to verify claims before reporting.
Such acts hamper efforts to provide help to hospitals that really need assistance, Sisodia, who is also the nodal minister for COVID-19 management in Delhi, said.
"This morning, I got an SOS call from a hospital that had 18 kilo litres of oxygen in stock," he tweeted. The hospital requires 4.8 kl a day and has a storage capacity of 21 kl, meaning it still has three days of supply left, the minister said.
Citing another such incident, Sisodia said a small hospital raised an alarm over oxygen shortage, but it was later found that it had been given 30 cylinders, out of which 20 were still to be used.
"I request hospitals not to raise alarms unnecessarily. Such acts hamper efforts to provide assistance to hospitals that really need help. The media should crosscheck before reporting such cases," he added.
This came even as Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal wrote to leading industrialists of the country seeking help with providing oxygen and cryogenic tankers for Delhi so that the supply of medical oxygen can be restored.
In a letter to the industrialists, he said the Capital was falling woefully short of required oxygen and asked them to treat his request as an SOS.
"Delhi does not produce any oxygen, and as you are aware, Delhi currently faces an acute shortage of oxygen. I would be grateful if you could provide Delhi government with
oxygen along with cryogenic tankers," Kejriwal wrote in his letter.
The Railways is transporting four liquid oxygen tankers from Raigarh to the national capital and has asked the Delhi government to arrange tankers for it. "While we have received help from the central
government in meeting
our oxygen requirements, the ferocity of the second wave is rendering the supply inadequate," he stated.