India: 20 coronavirus patients die in New Delhi hospital due to lack of oxygen

About 20 patients from covid-19 died in a hospital in New Delhi due to the lack of oxygen supply suffered by the Indian capital, amid an aggressive second wave of coronavirus cases that has put the health system in crisis.

“Twenty Covid-19 patients have died in hospital when oxygen levels were depleted last night. We are running out of stock quickly because the oxygen pressure dropped even more this morning, ”the director of the Jaipur Golden hospital, DK Baluja, told EFE.

New Delhi is going through a critical situation in its hospitals due to oxygen supply problems, lower than the city’s requirements, triggered by the rapid rise in cases of coronavirus.

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During the last week the head of government of the national capital, Arvind Kejriwal, has asked the national government to increase the oxygen quota that corresponds to the city to prevent the tragedy from worsening.

Although the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced an increase in the quota four days ago, hospitals continue to ask for help from the authorities to increase the supply.

As oxygen pressure continues to drop at the Jaipur Golden, “almost 200 patients in the hospital are in need of oxygen support. About 35 are in the intensive care unit, ”said Baluja.

Several hospitals have used social networks to request the help of the authorities and report the countdown of their oxygen reserves, on which hundreds of patients depend.

“Urgent help. We have less than 2 hours of oxygen supply at Moolchand Hospital. We are desperate, we have tried all the phone numbers of the official centers, but we have not been able to connect. We have more than 135 patients with COVID and many on life support ”, the Moolchand Healthcare hospital published this morning.

According to the Moolchand, a chain of private hospitals in India, “The tsunami of cases in Delhi wreaked havoc on the health system that was recovering from the first wave of COVID-19.”

Only the Indian capital registered more than 24,000 cases in the last day, and maintains more than 92,000 people with the active disease, which places a great burden on the public and private system.

With 16.6 million cases accumulated to date and 189,544 deaths in total, the second most populous nation in the world is experiencing the worst moment of the disease, with more than double the cases and deaths reported at the peak of the first wave, according to with official data.