As Sushil Kumar Srivastava’s breathlessness worsened, his family bundled the 70-year-old into a car and drove him to a hospital in the capital of Uttar Pradesh, where he tested positive for the coronavirus.

After the private hospital turned the retired government official away because it didn’t have any vacant beds, his son Ashish brought two oxygen cylinders and drove his father on a hunt for
a hospital that could admit him.

“All the hospitals asked for a referral letter from the chief medical officer (CMO),” Ashish said. “I was shooed away by the police,” he said, when he tried to meet the CMO.

Three days later, Ashish said someone from the government called him offering a bed — a day after his father had passed away.

The family’s ordeal reflects the worsening Covid-19 crisis in Uttar Pradesh. To get a Covid-19 bed in Lucknow, families say they need to first show the result of an RT-PCR test, which are in short supply, and then register with the CMO’s office.

2 die because of oxygen shortage in Gujarat

Ahmedabad: Two Covid-19 patients who were on life support died because of a shortage of oxygen at a private hospital in Deesa town of Gujarat’s Banaskantha district on Wednesday, PTI reported, quoting the district’s health officer Jignesh Hariyani.

“As against the demand, we had oxygen stock till Tuesday and the new stock was ordered, which reached during the day. Two patients lost their lives in the intervening period due to shortage of oxygen,” he said.

Bharat Patel, who said his father was one of the victims, claimed that three others had died at the hospital since Tuesday night because of oxygen shortage.

The Telegraph