Authorities have, however, denied that any deaths were reported due to oxygen shortage.
Deaths due to oxygen shortage continue to be reported in India -- this time from Hyderabad. A two-hour supply cut yesterday reportedly led to seven patients dying at a government hospital in the city, although authorities deny it.
Panic and chaos reigned at Hyderabad's District Hospital King Koti, a dedicated COVID-19 facility with 300 oxygen beds and 50 ICU beds, after the oxygen supply got disrupted yesterday at around 3 pm.
NDTV met with a few attendants of the patients who experienced the shortage. Some of them said they managed to make their own arrangements privately.
"My brother Krishna Chaitanya's oxygen saturation fell to 60 per cent. The patient on the next bed had an extra cylinder and we shared during the emergency," said Rohit Chaitanya. He is now chipping in by helping arrange cylinders for other patients.
What worsened the situation was that the oxygen tanker that was bringing in supplies lost its way and was later redirected by the police to the hospital.
By the time the crisis was solved, seven patients had died, sources say. Authorities, however, deny all this.
"District Hospital King Koti has adequate stocks of oxygen...to take care of supplies for 2 days. The news (of deaths) is not correct and it is tarnishing the name of a hospital..." a press release issued by the hospital superintendent said.
"...three patients were on assisted ventilation and were in critical condition. The prognosis was explained to patient attendants at the time of admission," the release said about some of those who died yesterday.
Oxygen shortage has led to such deaths across big and small hospitals in cities. The second wave of COVID-19 has created an unprecedented shortage of medical resources like hospital beds, drugs, and vaccines, besides oxygen, in India.
Yesterday alone, some 3.6 lakh fresh cases of Covid were reported from across the country, apart from 3,754 deaths.