K’taka ministers didn’t respond to oxygen SOS calls: Volunteers

Bengaluru: At least 10 hospitals in Bengaluru on Tuesday made desperate calls for help from the state government and others, stating that they were fast running out of oxygen. As of 7pm on Tuesday, only one hospital had claimed that they had received supply, while others were still struggling to source oxygen.

The desperation was a continuation of the stressful events that unfolded on Monday when five hospitals in the city ran out of oxygen. In one of the hospitals – Arka Hospital in Yelahanka – two persons died due to oxygen shortage.

Volunteers in Bengaluru who arranged for oxygen for these hospitals on Monday said that the government and ministers did not respond to the emergency calls, leaving volunteers to scramble for oxygen cylinders.

“Yesterday (Monday) was the first time, our city experienced an oxygen crisis like what was witnessed in New Delhi. But the government and its ministers were not available throughout the day. It was volunteers who arranged for oxygen,” said Saqib Idreez, a volunteer, who helped two hospitals get oxygen on Monday.

According to him, the panic calls began around the afternoon when he got a distress call from a woman who wanted an ICU bed. “When I asked her, she said that the hospital she is admitted, was running out of oxygen. We realized that there was a bigger problem than the one case, so we called up the hospital,” said Idreez.

When Idreez and other volunteers contacted the hospital, they claimed that their supply of oxygen was running out and they have stock only till 5 pm. Soon the volunteer group began making calls and also asked the hospital to provide a letter stating the concern.

In response, Dr Srihari Shapur, medical director of the hospital wrote a letter which read: “This is to inform you that we are running out of oxygen supply, we are unable to collect oxygen care for the patient. We have been informing since 01/05/2021, 6:00 pm. We will shortly run out of oxygen by 03/05/2021, 5 pm. Kindly arrange for beds in different hospitals. We regret this situation. And request you to co-operate in view of patient well-being.”

Idreez said that they made multiple calls to BBMP officials to talk about the issue, however, there was no response. Later, we were told that the deputy chief minister CN Ashwath Narayan had tweeted saying his office will dispatch oxygen supply. “In the meanwhile, we were getting similar calls from two other hospitals. Since the DCM had offered oxygen to Medex, we shifted our attention to the other two hospitals,” he said.

While they were procuring cylinders from the other two hospitals, we got a call from Medex saying they were running out of oxygen. “We were surprised because the DCM had offered to help. Then we called up his office and the men there kept saying the stock is on the way, but nothing reached. So, we decided to arrange cylinders ourselves and we managed to get around 15 of them, which gave the hospital some time,” said the volunteer.

But even in the late evening when no supply came, a volunteer from the group made calls to the Karnataka health minister Dr K Sudhakar. “We thought he would help, but instead he asked us to go to BBMP and fill the required forms. We told him that it was an emergency and explained the situation, but he kept telling us to go through BBMP. As he continued to argue, he cut the call,” said Idreez.

On Tuesday, at least five hospitals including Safa hospital, Mediscope hospital, Rajarajeshwari Nagar medical college, had placed emergency requests for oxygen. As the numbers were increasing Mercy Mission, a collective of volunteers and other volunteers were scrambling for cylinders from whichever centre or homes they could find them.

Medex was about to get a refill from Hosur in Bengaluru’s outskirts late at night and others were provided cylinders by the volunteers. “The one thing we realized was that the government hasn’t taken the oxygen crisis seriously. When we spoke with them, they were acting as if the hospitals were blowing the situation out of proportion. They haven’t learnt anything from what happened in New Delhi,” said a volunteer on the condition of anonymity.

Deputy chief minister Narayana and health minister Sudhakar didn’t respond to Hindustan Times’ calls for their version on the incident. A BBMP official on the condition of anonymity said that there was no shortage of oxygen in the state and there was a problem with storage, especially at the smaller hospitals. “Many hospitals, especially the smaller ones, don’t have enough storage facilities. They are mostly storing oxygen in small cylinders, and they have a requirement to refill multiple times in a day, this is leading to a shortage,” he said.

However, on Tuesday, the high court had pulled up the State and Central governments for the lack of oxygen supply in the state. “The requirement of the state is 1,467 metric tonnes and you have increased it only to 865 metric tonnes from existing allocation… Are you not aware that people have died in the state due to non-availability of oxygen,” a division bench of Chief justice Abhay Oka and justice Aravind Kumar asked the central government’s council.