Delhi has reported over 20,000 new Covid cases per day for the last week
Rajat Ahluwalia, 38, bruised and exhausted after standing in a kilometre-long queue in Delhi on Sunday, finally managed to secure a 10-litre oxygen cylinder for his ailing 65-year-old father.
Mr Ahluwalia is one among an army of desperate relatives running from pillar to post in the national capital trying to find oxygen and medication for family members battling the COVID-19 virus in overflowing hospitals staffed by overworked doctors and medical professionals.
"Poora 10 litre ka cylinder hai. Mera kandha chchil gaya hai jahan jahan se bharwa ke laaya hu kilometre lambi line me lagne ke baad. Tab jaake mujhe Oxygen mili hai (I managed to get a 10-litre cylinder but scraped my shoulders while bringing it...after standing in kilometre-long queues. This is the struggle that I had to go through in order to get oxygen)," Mr Ahluwalia told NDTV.
His father is fighting for his life in the ICU of Pentamed Hospital in Delhi's Model Town. But with 50 patients in critical condition as oxygen reserves fall with no sign of the tanks being refilled anytime soon, the hospital has been forced to ask many like him to make their own arrangements.
He travelled to Manesar in Haryana - nearly 60 km away - to get oxygen for his father and, as a Good Samaritan, for another patient whose son was equally hassled.
Mr Ahluwalia told NDTV people around him were struggling for each resource. "One injection of Remdesivir is worth Rs 5,400 but I had to buy it from the black market for Rs 35,000," he said.
And he is far from the only one.
Mohammad Akhlaq's brother, Imtiaz Ahmed, 45, is also in the ICU.
"My brother has been admitted for 10 days. He has been in the ICU for the last three days. We have been arranging for oxygen on our own and paying thousands. The hospital says it is unable to get it. Governments should have arranged this but I need to save my brother's life so I will do whatever it takes," Mr Akhlaq said, echoing the pain and frustration of thousands.
"We have 50 patients on oxygen support and if we don't get oxygen in 45 minutes I will not be able to save my patients," Dr Tarqueem Haider, Pentamed's Chief Medical Officer, told NDTV at noon.
This is the seventh straight day of Delhi's oxygen crisis.
The Fortis Escorts Heart Institute in Okhla - one of the biggest in the city - received a tanker today - a day after declaring it had stopped new admissions and sent out SOS calls for 100 patients.
Smaller hospitals like Pentamed have had to scrape by on cylinders arranged by staff and relatives.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has tweeted multiple appeals and written to the centre, his counterparts and industrialists to ask for help. Today he said worried relatives could track incoming oxygen supplies on a website that would have regular updates from manufacturers and hospitals.
"With this the government will know where there is going to be a shortage and it can be resolved... we are trying to get help from wherever we can. I have written to all Chief Ministers...Negotiations have started with some states and I will tell you of any positive results," he said.
The oxygen crisis - triggered by a devastating new wave of Covid infections that has crippled the city's health infrastructure - has also led to panic among hospitals.
Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia flagged that issue, warning against "unnecessary alarms" that would prevent oxygen from being sent to hospitals that are in actual need.
"I request hospitals not to raise unnecessary alarms on lack of oxygen. By doing this, there is a problem in getting help to the needy hospitals. The media is also requested to run such news only after taking information about the facts," he tweeted.
Apart from supplies from manufacturing facilities in neighbouring states, Delhi is also scheduled to get 70 tonnes of oxygen from the Jindal Steel plant in Chhattisgarh's Raigarh, which should reach the city late Monday night thanks to the Railways' Oxygen Express scheme.