Dramatic health care collapse in India: several hospitals ran out of oxygen, mass deaths of patients

Coronavirus patients rejected at hospital doors, corridors saturated with infected people that several people must share a stretcher, patients dying of oxygen shortage and overcrowded mortuaries, these are some of the dramatic scenes experienced in New Delhi health centers.

The second wave of the coronavirus caused a significant and exponential increase in intensive care bed occupancy and oxygen consumption. The demand for gas is so high that the Indian authorities cannot deliver the fields on time. A sample of the disturbing missing was given to the Golden Hospital in Jaipur where Twenty coronavirus patients died when oxygen supply ran out.

Faced with the worrying situation, requests for help from hospitals are repeated: “Urgent help. We have less than 2 hours of oxygen supply at Moolchand Hospital. We are desperate»Says the press release from a chain of private clinics. Max, another hospital network also reported on his status: “We have oxygen supply for less than an hour“

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According to the government of the capital, the city receives one hundred tons of gas below the current demand. This is why officials in New Delhi They called on the national government to speed up procurement to avoid a tragedy. However, they warned that the shortage is not only due to lack of deliveries, it is also affecting the small number of oxygen storage tanks that are installed.

The number of infections and deaths from COVID-19 that are recorded daily in India exceeds all records recorded throughout the pandemic: in the last 24 hours there have been 346,786 infections and 2,634 deaths. These numbers are more than double the number of cases and deaths that occurred daily during the peak of the first wave.

In the wake of the new reports, the new wave of the coronavirus has been described by Indian health officials as a “tsunami” and attribute the exponential rate of COVID-19 infections to radjustment of preventive measures by the population and the government. In addition, the appearance of a variant in the Asian giant, known under the name of B.1.617, could play a fundamental role in the new epidemiological dynamic: it would be more contagious because of its double mutation.

The international community is starting to respond and protect itself against the spread of the Indian variant and countries like Canada, France and United Arab Emirates tighten controls on Indian travelers or even suspended their flights with the Asian giant.

From tomorrow, Germany it will also be added to the list of those who ban air links. But the Indian mutation has already been detected in Europe by Switzerland and the Czech Republic, which today announced the presence of cases of the coronavirus variant B.1.617.

World Health Organization (WHO) reviews increase in coronavirus cases in India and its director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, he was “deeply concerned”. He also assured that “they will do their utmost to save as many lives as possible”.

India is the world’s largest producer of vaccines and before the second wave it had encouraged the donation of immunizers against the coronavirus. This act of solidarity was suspended when President Narendra Modi banned the export of doses and drugs as the second wave that is now causing the health collapse was just beginning.

Unfortunately, the so-called “world’s largest vaccination campaign”, which has so far applied 135 million doses, failed to counteract the advance of new infections. Indian health officials expect the new peak in infections to be reached in the next 2-3 weeks.