In the midst of massive oxygen shortage in Delhi, the Indian Railways delivered 244 tonnes of oxygen on Tuesday and efforts were on by the Central agencies to ease the situation within the next 24 hours.
Several hospitals here continue to grapple with the shortage of medical oxygen, as coronavirus cases continued to spike every passing day. So far nearly five dozen Covid-19 patients have died painful deaths due to shortage of oxygen.
With the Delhi High Court flogging the Centre on daily basis to improve the oxygen supply, and the Supreme Court showing no leniency either, the Centre has no option but to improve the oxygen supply on urgent basis. That should redeem the situation sooner than later and save precious lives.
The Oxygen Expresses will deliver nearly 450 MT of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to Delhi alone in 24 hours, the railways said.
“Two more Oxygen Express carrying more than 244 MT cumulative of LMO are on its way from Hapa and Mundra and are expected to reach Delhi today itself. With the arrival of two more Oxygen Expresses, Delhi would see nearly 450MT of LMO in 24 hours beginning early hours to 4th May,” it said.
“Of the total 382 MT of LMO being delivered today by Railways, nearly 244 MT would be meant for Delhi,” it added.
Earlier, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national spokesperson Raghav Chadha claimed that Delhi received only about 44 per cent (433 MT) of the total demand of 976 MT of Oxygen on Monday.
On average 393 MT oxygen is being supplied to Delhi per day during last seven days, which is 40 per cent of the total demand, he said. Considering the scenario, Chadha said even if the Delhi Government increases the beds capacity, the shortage of oxygen will remain a matter of concern.
To avert the crisis in hospitals, the Government has created “SOS reserve” from where we supply oxygen responding to various hospitals that keep sending SOS alerts to the Delhi Government, he said.
Chadha said 41 SOS calls received via social media, helpline numbers and other channels and all were addressed and provided with oxygen.
People with dipping oxygen levels were seen running around to get an oxygen bed or cylinder but returning with no hope. Delhi’s Covid graph has increased but the city is grappling with oxygen availability.
“The gap of 56 per cent between demand and supply in oxygen supply still exists and the faster we overcome the gap, the faster the SOS calls will decrease,” he added.
“We are doing everything we can so that every patient returns home healthy, safe, and sound. Hence, we decided that it was necessary to put forth all the figures with utmost transparency in front of the people of Delhi. The amount of oxygen we received in the past week, the number of SOS calls we addressed, and how we are actually dealing with them on a 24x7 basis through adequate communication and successfully tackling the concerns of people. This oxygen bulletin is an attempt to put all of this in front of the people of Delhi,” he said.
Citing the gap between oxygen intake, need, and allocation, Chadha ascertained, “We need 976 MT of oxygen while what we received on 3rd May from the central government was only 433 MT. Hence, this is just 44 per cent of what we need and what we have demanded from the centre.”
“We really hope that the oxygen support is facilitated in all hospitals and pray for all the people of Delhi. There are 21,000 ICU beds in Delhi which need oxygen. The beds are being rapidly increased by the Kejriwal Government. We need 976 MT, and we received only 433 MT yesterday only, which is only 44 per cent of what we need,” he added.
So far, Indian Railways has delivered more than 1585 metric tonnes Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to Maharashtra (174 MT), Uttar Pradesh (492 MT), Madhya Pradesh (179 MT), Delhi (464 MT), Haryana (150 MT) & Telangana (127 MT).
