Breathless India - Who Is To Blame And What Can Be Done?

A lethal second wave and critical shortage in oxygen supply have crippled india’s fight against covid. Why did india fail to foresee the crisis and what can it do to mitigate it?

- Sandeep Unnithan

ON THE NIGHT OF APRIL 23, Subhash Varma, a 53-year-old healthcare professional, and his wife Anuja returned exhausted to their flat in Dwarka, a suburb in southwestern Delhi. They had spent a harrowing day trying to get Anuja’s severely ill sister Tanuja Vidyarthi into the emergency ward at the Jaipur Golden Hospital, a designated Covid-19 treatment center in Rohini, 22 kilometers away. A schoolteacher from Karol Bagh, Tanuja, 53, had tested positive for Covid on April 16 and rushed to the hospital after her blood oxygen level plummeted to under 70.

At around 1.30 am, the couple got a call from the hospital. Tanuja’s condition had deteriorated and she had to be put on a ventilator. “We don’t know what to do,” the hospital told them, “please come in the morning.” When the Varmas reached the hospital five hours later, they were informed that Tanuja hadn’t made it through the night. An anguished wail from distraught relatives of other patients made them realise why: “My sister died because the hospital ran out of oxygen….”

At least 20 patients at the hospital died that day because the medical oxygen running through the pipes in the emergency wards got exhausted. The patients slowly drifted into unconsciousness, most still hooked to their face masks, as the oxygen in their blood drained out, a condition called hypoxia.