Eight covid patients, including the Head of the gastroenterology department, Dr. R K Himthani of Batra Hospital died due to oxygen shortage.
Batra Hospital told the high court, “We didn’t get oxygen on time. We ran out of oxygen at noon. We got oxygen at 1:35 pm. We have lost lives, including one of our doctors.”
The hospital further informed that “there are five others who are in the process of resuscitation. They are critical.”
Batra Hospital has 327 patients out of which 48 are in the critical care unit. It has been raising alarms since over-depleting levels of oxygen supply but didn’t get oxygen on time. Around 12.30 pm, the hospital claimed it had run out of liquid medical oxygen supply. An oxygen tanker reached the hospital around 1.35 pm.
This is the second time in a week that Batra Hospital has run out of medical oxygen. On April 24 the hospital received a last-minute re-supply that arrived minutes after its oxygen reserves ran out.
High Court on Saturday also asked hospitals to learn from their experiences regarding oxygen scarcity during the prevailing Covid-19 pandemic and set up plants for generating the life-saving gas.
