Delhi's Rainbow Children's Hospital sounds alert over oxygen shortage

New Delhi: Delhi's Madhukar Rainbow Children's Hospital on Sunday sounded alert over oxygen shortage on a regular basis despite it claimed to be the city's southern region's only hospital that have been admitting pregnant women infected with Covid-19.

The 130-bedded hospital sent an SOS message through its Twitter handle after it again faced similar issue on Sunday when the oxygen availability at the facility for the day was estimated till 12 noon.

Based in south Delhi's Malviya Nagar area, the hospital currently admitted 80-90 Covid patients that included pregnant women and children-- some in ICU and NICU.

Soon after the SOS message was posted by the hospital, AAP MLA Raghav Chadha said, "We have arranged five D Type oxygen cylinders for Rainbow Children's Hospital, from our Rajghat Response Point. The govt's oxygen reserves are extremely limited due to reduced oxygen supply to Delhi, but we are doing everything possible to avert any untoward incident."

In a tweet, Ranbow Children Hospital alerted, "We have liquid oxygen supply till 12 noon on Sunday at Madhukar Rainbow Children hospital."

A hospital staff Ankita, , who sounded the alert, said that the hospital has been facing oxygen crisis on "daily basis".

"It is a daily task. Its daily hue and cry the firefighting mode that we have to come forward too. Being a children hospital, its very difficult for us to come to a firefighting mode every day.

"If we have ample amount of oxygen, we will be able to take more children also. Some of the time we have to limit ourselves to admit patients because of the oxygen scarcity. "

Ankita said that Rainbow is the "only hospital in the south Delhi which is actively taking Covid positive pregnant women and secondly we have several children".

Due to the medical oxygen shortage for over an hour, twelve Covid-19 patients, including a doctor, lost their lives on Saturday afternoon in Delhi's Batra Hospital.