Gasping for breath outside LNJP, GTB, patients awaiting oxygen

New Delhi: As Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal sends out an SOS message to the Centre, highlighting the Capital's desperate need for ICU beds and medical oxygen, residents in Delhi are gasping for breath, some waiting to be treated outside hospitals in ambulances, and others succumbing to their illness before they could get fresh oxygen.

Millennium Post spent the night at two of Delhi's largest Covid hospitals on Saturday - Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Hospital and the GTB hospital.

In addition to Covid-19 casualty wards brimming with crowds of medical staff rushing to tend to patients who were either found sharing stretchers or sitting on the floor with their oxygen cylinders, there was an acute shortage of wheelchairs and stretchers to bring in patients waiting outside in ambulances.

While reports had arrived that two patients had died waiting to get oxygen outside the LNJP hospital on Saturday night before 10 pm, the medical oxygen shortage plagued the hospital till at least 2 am. By this time, there were at least 13 Covid-19 patients and suspects waiting in ambulances outside the hospital building, and one patient arriving every 10-15 minutes.

By 4 am, two more bodies were rolled out of the LNJP Covid casualty ward and at least one body was brought out of the GTB Covid casualty before either of them could be admitted to the hospital.

Meanwhile, as the crisis unfolded at GTB Hospital in the Dilshad Garden area, which has been declared as a Covid-19 dedicated hospital, the crowd of waiting patients was relatively thinner. Between 2:15 am and 3:30 am, there were at any one point of time at least four to five patients waiting to be rolled to the Covid casualty, all on an oxygen cylinder that is quickly emptying and gasping for breath.

With oxygen running out quickly in Delhi, the same was the situation with patients arriving at the LNJP hospital. In fact, one middle-aged Covid-19 patient walked into the LNJP emergency building in shorts with his attendant carrying an oxygen cylinder on his shoulder. "I have Corona, Oxygen is almost over. Please let me go inside," he told the security staff, before entering the Covid casualty around 1:30 am.

Another patient, an elderly woman, arrived around 3:30 am at the LNJP hospital in an auto with her family. As the auto wanted to rush outside, the patient alighted and walked into the Covid casualty with help from family before collapsing the moment she walked in. She sat on the floor for 15-20 mins, before being helped into a recently emptied stretcher. Just that moment, doctors wheeled out a Covid-19 body out of the casualty ward.

The ward itself was teeming with patients, their families. Some were inside to collect paperwork for a dear one who died and in the crowd, social distancing and sanitisation was lost. While all occupants inside were wearing masks, many patients, families were seen walking into the room without sanitsing.

At GTB hospital, even as patients kept coming in to check for available oxygen beds, an elderly man in his 80s, who was rushed in, breathed his last before he could even be taken inside. His daughter broke down immediately and as she received a call from family, she shrieked, "Papa gaye. Aur bolo corona kahatam ho gaya hai. (Dad's gone. Keep saying Corona is over)." The man was wheeled inside only to be declared dead and brought back out for the family to take him home.

Another patient's family waiting outside the ward said they had been asked to wait with him inside the ambulance as it might take some time to find a stretcher to put him on.

And while LNJP had received oxygen supply by 3:30 am and the number of patients waiting outside had reduced, the shortage of stretchers and wheelchairs persisted. Mohinder Singh from Model Town was at the hospital with his wife earlier that night. "There are beds here. My wife's O2 is already 78-80," he said, adding that her oxygen cylinder was quickly emptying and that there was no stretcher or wheelchair to take her in.

"She is in no position to walk. They don't have any available stretchers or wheelchairs. I went inside and saw patients sharing stretchers," Mohinder said. The couple waited in their ambulance outside for three hours, ordered an oxygen cylinder from home before being taken inside.

At both the GTB and LNJP hospitals, as the patients waited in ambulances outside, doctors in full PPE kits kept stepping out from time to time to care for them.

Significantly, CM Kejriwal on Sunday promised 6,000 oxygen beds in the Capital in the next two to three days.

Daily Covid-19 deaths in the city have hit record highs more than three times this month.