As health facilities across Kalaburagi, particularly those in the private sector, started falling short of medical oxygen to treat COVID-19 patients, six patients, five COVID-19 patients and one suspected to have contracted COVID-19, died in the last 24 hours. The cause of two of these deaths was said to be oxygen scarcity.
As per information provided by sources in the Health Department, two COVID-19 patients, a man and a woman, died at Anand Hospital in Kalaburagi on Monday due to oxygen shortage. Hospital’s Managing Director Anand also said that dearth of oxygen was the cause of death.
Four more patients died at Aland Taluk Hospital, three COVID-19-infected women late on Sunday night and one suspected to have had COVID-19 on Monday morning. The hospital authorities cited health complexities as the cause of deaths.
People who rushed a patient suffering from breathlessness to the District General Hospital attached to Gulbarga Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS) were found waiting with the wheelchair-bound patient outside the hospital. The relatives of the 53-year old patient from Bhimabal village in Kamalapur taluk ran from pillar to post visiting every hospital desperately searching for a bed before reaching GIMS. The patient’s brother was seen crying for help.
Private hospitals in Kalaburagi are reeling under oxygen crisis for the last few days as a result of the widening gap between demand and supply. The crisis deepened n Sunday after the district administration, which had undertaken the expansion of ICU bed capacity at the State-owned ESIC Hospital to accommodate more COVID-19 patients, forced oxygen suppliers to cut down supplies to private hospitals and divert them to government facilities. Police teams are deployed at oxygen refilling plants to ensure the diversion of supplies from private hospitals to government hospitals.
