They continue to make desperate appeals to all Central and state authorities for urgent, regular oxygen supplies for Covid patients; Kejriwal writes to other CMs pleading for their states’ surplus O2 for Capital.

For yet another day many hospitals in Delhi continued to reel under severe oxygen shortage ~ a life-anddeath crisis for score of their Covid patients ~ even as a tsunami of coronavirus cases has overwhelmed the national capital’s healthcare system.

Amid the unprecedented oxygen crisis amid the deadly, ferocious coronavirus storm, some helpless hospitals in Delhi are advising relatives to shift their patients to other facilities, even as several others have been left with no option but to use their critical, backup supplies.

Making an urgent plea for oxygen supply, Narin Sehgal, director Sehgal Neo Hospital, Meera Bagh, said the facility had 120 Covid patients out of the total 150 and oxygen was left for another two hours only.

“Sixty Covid patients in my hospital are in dire need of oxygen,” Sehgal said through a video message.

“I really don’t know how to help my patients in a situation like this,” Sehgal said.

“I’ve been asking for help from everyone, but nothing is coming through. Please help me!” Fortis Hospital in Shalimar Bagh, presently running on its backup oxygen supply, urged the Prime Minister, Delhi chief minister and other ministers for “immediate assistance”.

The Saroj Super Speciality Hospital, having not received oxygen refill for the past 44 hours, is now advising its patients to shift to other hospitals.

“We’re running low on oxygen and using our backup now. We have alerted our patients about the situation and are advising them to shift to another hospital. Things are really uncertain,” Saroj Super Speciality Hospital medical director P K Bhardwaj said.

Bhardwaj said the hospital, which needs three metric tonnes of oxygen per day on an average, was only getting around 1 MT of oxygen for the past few days.

Seventy patients at the hospital are currently on oxygen support. Sailing in the same boat is the Batra Hospital in Tughlakabad Institutional area.

“We’ve run out of oxygen completely, even the backup,” Batra Hospital executive director Sudhanshu Bankata said.

“We feel helpless; have started asking families to take patients to other healthcare facilities where oxygen is available.” Bankata had warned the authorities of such a situation earlier in the day when the hospital received an emergency oxygen supply moments around 9 am. He had said the stock would “last another one-and-a-half hours” only.

There are around 350 patients admitted at the hospital, out of which 265 are coronavirus positive and 30 are in the ICU. Twenty critical patients died overnight at Jaipur Golden Hospital in Delhi amid a serious oxygen crisis.

The hospital, which has over 200 patients, had only half an hour of oxygen left at 10.45 am.

The situation is equally worrisome at Fortis Hospital, which is running on its backup oxygen supply, desperately waiting for the refill since morning.

“Fortis Shalimar Bagh is running out of oxygen. Patients’ lives are at risk,” it tweeted, issuing an SOS.

“We are running on backup, waiting for supplies since morning. We are currently suspending admissions. Request immediate assistance @PMOIndia @ArvindKejriwal @AmitShah @PiyushGoyal @rajnathsingh,” the hospital added.

The hospital said it was keeping the patients and attendants informed about the “critical situation”, and trying to manage admitted patients to the best of their abilities. On his part, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal urged his counterparts in other states to provide oxygen to the national capital, saying all available resources are proving to be inadequate owing to the severity of Covid.

“I am writing to all CMs requesting them to provide oxygen to Delhi, if they have spare. Though Central govt is also helping us, the severity of corona is such that all available resources are proving inadequate,” Kejriwal tweeted in the evening.

The deaths at Delhi’s Jaipur Golden Hospital took place when the hospital was waiting for oxygen to be replenished, officials said. Delhi logged 24,331 fresh Covid cases and record 348 deaths yesterday while the positivity rate stood at 32.43 per cent. The city has reported at least 2,100 deaths due to the deadly virus in 11 days.