Hummingbird News Desk
NEW DELHI, 24 APRIL: The Delhi High Court on Saturday stated that it will “hang” anyone who obstructs the movement of oxygen. The court made the statement when it was hearing a petition on oxygen supply.
“You [be] rest assured that we will hang that man. We will not spare anyone,” a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli said during a special three-hour-long hearing on a holiday on the issue of escalating oxygen crisis in various hospitals in Delhi. The petition was moved by a group of private hospitals from the national capital amidst the shortage of oxygen supplies.
The court also asked the Centre about the preparedness to deal with the expected COVID-19 second wave peak in mid-May, terming the mounting cases as a “tsunami”.
The court said the viral disease has low mortality and those who have a low immunity will eventually die but the problem comes when people who could be saved are also dying. “The mortality rate needs to be reduced.”
“We are calling it a wave, [but] it is actually a tsunami,” the court said, and asked the Centre about the preparedness in terms of infrastructure, hospitals, medical staff, medicines, vaccines and oxygen as on date for the peak.
It asked the Centre and the Delhi government to submit a report by April 26, the next date of hearing, with regard to the national capital on the augmentation of the medical infrastructure – like beds, oxygen, ventilators, medical staff and medicines – to deal with the expected peak of the COVID pandemic.
Meanwhile, the Delhi government informed the court that the system will “collapse” if it does not get 480 metric tonnes of oxygen.
“When will Delhi get 480 metric tonnes? Please tell us that,” the court asked the Union government while hearing Maharaja Agrasen Hospital’s petition.
About 20 Covid patients died last night at ‘Jaipur Golden Hospital’ due to the low supply of oxygen. The hospital has appealed to authority in the national capital to arrange oxygen at the earliest.
Delhi is in a dire state as more hospitals continued to send out SOS calls reporting a shortage of medical oxygen and sought help from authorities to ensure supply.
Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH), Batra Hospital, Jaipur Golden Hospital, Fortis Shalimar Bagh, Mata Chanan Devi, Metro Hospital Preet Vihar, and Saroj Hospital made SOS calls about a shortage of medical oxygen.
The query came after the Delhi government said it was getting only 380 MT oxygen per day over the past few days and it received only around 300 MT on Friday.
The Central government said one of the reasons for the shortage in supply was due to the Delhi government not providing cryogenic tankers for picking up liquid oxygen.
Delhi government, represented by senior advocate Rahul Mehra, told the court that it was not an industrial state, and therefore, did not have access to such tankers.
The solicitor general said various states are making arrangements for converting existing tankers for storage of oxygen, or are procuring the same from other sources and the Delhi government too should make endeavours in that direction.
The court questioned the Delhi government officers as to what endeavours they have made to secure tankers to get the supply of oxygen allocated to it by the Centre.
The court directed the Delhi government to take steps to procure the tankers, saying it should not leave it entirely on the Central government. The Centre and Delhi government should work together on this issue, it said.
The court also asked the Delhi government to go over the national allocation plan for oxygen and give suggestions on re-working it, so that the national capital can get oxygen from nearby sources and the suppliers allocated to it can supply to other states.
