Batra Hospital ran out of medical oxygen for the second time in a week (File)
New Delhi:
Several people, including one doctor, died at Delhi’s Batra Hospital on Saturday afternoon after the facility reportedly ran out of oxygen – for the second time in the space of a week – at 12.45 pm.
Hospital officials told the Delhi High Court – which is continuing marathon hearings into the oxygen crisis in the national capital – that re-supply tankers only reached the hospital at around 1.30 pm, meaning that around 230 critically ill patients were without oxygen for around 80 minutes.
“We ran out of oxygen at 12.45 pm. Supply came at 1.30. We were out of oxygen for 1 hour and 20 mins,” the hospital told the court.
“We hope no lives were lost,” the court responded, to which the hospital said: We have… including one of our own… one doctor.”
Earlier today Batra Hospital’s Executive Director, Dr Sudhanshu Bankata, issued a video SOS
“We have just run out of oxygen… currently surviving on some cylinders. Over the next 10 minutes that will also runout. We are again in crisis mode. The Delhi government is trying to help but believe their tanker is still some distance away,” he said.
Minutes later, at 12.01 pm, the hospital informed the court it was running out oxygen, again.
“We are in SOS since 6 am today morning… we have 307 patients admitted, out of whom 230 are on oxygen support,” the hospital had said.
Batra Hospital is among several in the national capital battling a crippling oxygen shortage that has endangered the lives of thousands of Covid and non-Covid patients.
Exactly one week ago – on April 24 – the hospital received a last-minute emergency re-supply from the Delhi government that arrived minutes after its oxygen stock ran out at 9 am.
“Just now, we received an emergency supply from Delhi government. It will last another one-and-a-half hours. Our supplier has not been responding to calls,” Dr Bankata had told news agency PTI.
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