No deaths due to shortage of oxygen: Goa minister in assembly
Vishwajit Rane’s statement came in a written reply to Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat who sought to know the details of the total number of deaths of Covid patients who died in GMC due to shortage of oxygen.
No one died at the Goa Medical College (GMC) due to oxygen shortage and the hospital never ran out of supplies, state health minister Vishwajit Rane told the assembly on Friday, contradicting his previous comments and the administration’s submissions in the high court.
Rane’s statement came in a written reply to Leader of Opposition Digambar Kamat who sought to know the details of the total number of deaths of Covid patients who died in GMC due to shortage of oxygen.
“At no point in time, the oxygen supplies at GMC ran out of stock and thus, no death has been reported to have caused due to non supply of oxygen,” Rane said in a written reply.
The response comes days after the central government told Parliament that no deaths due to lack of oxygen were “specifically reported” by states or Union territories, triggering an uproar.
At the height of the second wave of Covid in May, at least 83 people died over five days at the premier hospital due to a drop in oxygen pressure between 2 am and 6 am every day – a period later referred to by the high court as the “dark hours”. At the time, every second person being tested for the virus in Goa was returning a positive result.
The deaths prompted the Bombay high court at Goa to take up the case and sharply criticise the government’s handling of the crisis at the hospital.
In its submissions, the government had pointed to logistical problems in the supply of oxygen to some Covid wards, and said on May 13,“some deaths may have taken place due to fall of pressure in the supply lines of oxygen to the patients.”
“There were logistical issues involved in maneuvering the tractor which carries the trolleys of oxygen and in connecting the cylinders to the manifold. During this process there was some interruption, which resulted in a fall of pressure in the supply lines of oxygen to the patients. It is basically on account of these factors some casualties may have taken place,” the state government said in anaffidavit filed by health secretary Ravi Dhawanon May 13.
GMC dean Shivanand Bandekar also told the court on May 12 that the hospital was facing a shortage of 6.5 metric tonne (MT) of oxygen per day, and that supply was not being augmented.
At the time, GMC was handling more patients than its bed capacity. Authorities delivered oxygen in two ways – 700 regular beds through a central pipeline, and 250 additional beds set up during the pandemic by loose cylinders that needed to be replaced and refilled.
On May 11, health minister Rane first flagged the issue of dropping oxygen pressure levels and called for a probe into the deaths.
Rane said that on the night of May 10 and May 11, 26 and 21 people, respectively, died due to oxygen shortage. The following three nights, 15, 13 and eight more people died before the government shifted from using oxygen cylinders to a liquid medical oxygen tank.
On May 12, the high court rejected the government’s submission that logistical problems with tractors caused the crisis.
“We have long passed the stage of determining whether patients are suffering from the lack of oxygen or not. The material placed before us establishes that patients are indeed suffering and even in some cases, succumbing for want of the supply of oxygen, in the state of Goa,” the high court said.
The Goa Association of Resident Doctors (GARD) flagged oxygen problems at GMC as early as May 3.
Opposition parties on Friday were quick to pick on the Goa government for its claim.
“Whether it’s rape victims or #COVID19 victims, the trauma never ends from this @DrPramodPSawant’s @GovtofGoa. Real #Goemkars (Goans) died, @visrane (Vishwajit Rane)! In #Goa. If you don’t feel any respect or sympathy towards their grieving families, at least pretend!” Goa Forward president Vijai Sardesai tweeted.
HT reached out to Rane for a comment but did not get any response immediately.
A resident doctor posted at a Covid ward said on condition of anonymity: “We also faced shortages of oxygen masks, faulty and non functioning NIV ventilators, faulty oximeters and other consumables during the entire duration of the peak.”
The residents had initially complained that “higher authorities” were misleading the state over the real picture within the Covid wards.
“On a daily basis, we saw all higher authorities giving statements that there is no issue of oxygen and beds. In the middle of the night when oxygen gets over, and patients’ situations worsen and sometimes die, it’s the junior doctor on duty who has to face angry relatives,” GARD had said in an earlier letter to the dean.
