Oxygen crisis continues at Goa medical college as 8 more COVID-19 patients die

PANAJI: The oxygen crisis at the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMCH) continued on Saturday after eight more COVID-19 patients lost their lives due to the alleged shortage of liquid medical oxygen.

This is the fifth time this week when COVID-19 patients at the state-run medical facility have lost their lives due to oxygen shortage. So far, 83 patients have died. Most of the deaths, as per official figures, occurred during the "dark hours" between 2 am and 6 am.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, 26 and 20 patients were killed respectively. On Thursday, 15 more patients died while 13 more had succumbed at the facility on Friday.

However, doctors at the facility have dismissed that patients died to oxygen shortage, noting that many of them were killed because of COVID pneumonia that "requires O2 treatment".

Dr Shivananad Bandekar, GMCH dean, has said that identifying these deaths in a separate manner was not correct as COVID-19 fatalities are taking place throughout the day.

Meanwhile, Goa Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Sunday said that the oxygen supply at the GMCH is getting streamlined after a 20,000-kilolitre oxygen tank was commissioned at the facility. The tank was shifted from Bicholim industrial estate.

"Now, we should not have problems regarding the oxygen supply. The commissioning of the tank is a major step towards solving this problem," Rane said while speaking to news agency PTI.

Meanwhile, Goa's COVID situation continues to be grim. The state reported 3,512 cases on Saturday that pushed its caseload to 1.34 lakh. On the other hand, the death toll crossed the 2,000-mark after the state reported 58 fatalities on Saturday.

The state currently has 30,774 active COVID-19 cases while 1.01 lakh patients have recovered from the infection.

With situation getting murkier with each passing day, the Goa government has decided to take over the rights to admission in all the 21 private hospitals in the state treating COVID-19 patients from May 17.

"We have also come across the instances wherein private hospitals were not providing COVID-19 treatment under the DDSSY scheme (the medical insurance scheme of the state government)," Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, quoted by PTI, said.

"We will ensure that 50 per cent of beds in the private hospitals will be kept reserved for treating COVID-19 patients. This will help to ease the load on facilities like the Goa Medical College and Hospital," he added.