Ujjain: Despite tall claims of health infrastructure made by the Shivraj Singh Chauhan government in Madhya Pradesh, medical facilities continue to be in a grim state in several districts. So much so that patients in Covid-19 facilities are being even given oxygen on the hospital floor due to the lack of enough beds.
The scenes were witnessed at the leading government-run Madhav Hospital which has been turned into a dedicated Covid-19 care facility. The hospital is, however, battling a dearth of basic amenities, including oxygen supply and fitted beds, as a result of which several patients are forced lie down on the floor or sit in chair in OPD for their treatment.
These six patients are awaiting Covid19 confirmation reports. The hospital already has 135 Covid19 patients.
Situation in Ujjain was reported to be worse than last year as on Monday the district reported 317 fresh cases, taking the toll of active cases to 8045.
Despite the pitiable conditions at the Madhav hospital, none of the administrative officer commented on the prevailing situation. The physicians on duty in the hospital also declined to comment on the matter.
Recently, after death of five Covid-19 patients at the same facility, their families had blamed oxygen scarcity for their demise.
Mohan Yadav, minister for Higher Education had recently visited district hospital (Charak) and Madhav Hospital and had ordered improvement in facilities.
Meanwhile, deaths of Covid patients have also been reported also from Sagar (5) and Khargone (1) due to dearth of oxygen supply but administration had denied linking these mortalities to oxygen scarcity.
Amid state government claims of sufficient oxygen stocks, on Monday, the Bhopal city also reported death of five Covid19 patients allegedly due to oxygen supply shortage.
Four of these mortalities were reported at City hospital in MP Nagar and the hospital management confirmed they had run out of oxygen and could not arrange additional stocks. Another patient died at PGBM hospital for the same reason.
Another private hospital of the city had discharged three patients after running out of oxygen and their families hurried them to other facilities.
Other leading Covid care hospitals in MP were also found to be struggling with oxygen supply.
Five patients reportedly died of oxygen supply shortage at Gurjar hospital in Bhawarkuan area in Indore in the wee hours on Tuesday.
Talking about the issue, Bhopal collector Avinash Lavaliya said, “City hospitals were given 46 tonnes of oxygen 80 hospitals and we will look into the matter on what caused these mortalities. Whichever hospital approached us, we helped them with oxygen supplied.”
Indore MP Shankar Lalwani said the oxygen demand has increased by 60% in Indore and he is in talks with the Centre to resolve the crisis. Nearby plants are also working 24×7 to meet the supply, he said. Indore collector Manish Singh denied deaths due to oxygen shortage, saying six to seven hospitals in the city are struggling with oxygen supplies but “there is a reserved a pool of 1,000 cylinders and officers are personally present at oxygen plants for monitoring supplies”.
Meanwhile, the administration in Bhopal is constantly claiming that oxygen is available in the state and on Monday, the Dept of Public Relations had claimed that 244 metric tonnes of daily oxygen is available in the state and healthcare supply is being preferred on industrial supply of this gas.
Days ago, Md Suleman, the Addl Principal Secretary Health had claimed that the state through hard pressed for oxygen had sufficient supplies through multiple sources and reports of oxygen scarcity were baseless and misleading.
The state government on Monday had claimed of having plans to buy oxygen concentrator machines to suck the gas from the environment.
MPCC chief Kamal Nath on Tuesday said that Shivraj government every day boasts of having sufficient arrangements including oxygen and beds but ground realities are exact opposite. After Sagar, Ujjain and Khargone; death of patients due to oxygen shortage is saddening, said Nath.
By Monday evening, the state reported 6489 fresh cases of infections in last 24 hours which took the active numbers of cases to 38,651.
(With inputs from Anand Nigam, Ujjain.)
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