Three persons died on Monday morning allegedly due to lack of oxygen when the 6-KL Liquid Oxygen Tank at Hindupur Government Hospital got emptied. The patients’ kin raised a hue and cry on the hospital premises on Monday morning when there was none to make alternative arrangements to connect the bulk oxygen cylinders.
On getting information, Hindupur circle Inspector of police Bala Maddileti along with his staff reached and brought the situation under control after listening to the kin of the patients. “The oxygen supply suddenly stopped at 5.40 a.m. and there was none to connect the bulk cylinders. We had to run and get the cylinders and connect them ourselves. In this interregnum three patients have died,” the attendants told the police.
When contacted, Oxygen Nodal Officer and District Forest Officer R. Jagannath Singh told The Hindu that they had made all arrangements for the oxygen supply with 140 bulk cylinders kept ready and connected to the grid. “We knew that there was a shortage of oxygen as only 1.4 KL of LMO was there in the 6-KL tank last night. We have an Oxygen Monitoring Team on the hospital premises and they are taking care of all these,” he said. Another bulk container came at 8 a.m. and has once again filled the 6-KL LMO tank and there is no dearth, he explained.
The Hindupur Government Hospital Superintendent Prabhakar said that there were sufficient numbers of bulk cylinders and they were connected when the supply from the LMO tank stopped. “The patient's SPO2 saturation levels were low for the past two days and it was due to those complications that the three patients died, but not due to lack of oxygen supply,” Dr. Prabhakar added.
