A Nation Gasping for Breadth: India’s Oxygen Crisis
- themidnightmagazin
- Jul 21, 2021
- 3 min read
By: Kim Di Angelo
The struggle to keep Covid patients breathing and what's was done to help.
The coronavirus continues to ravage India, to the point where there were shortages in not only beds but antiviral drugs, coronavirus testing kits, and even oxygen. Patients were dying by the dozens because of this shortage, earning the title of ‘India’s oxygen crisis’ and even calling for international aid. Here’s what happened and how the situation was handled.
In early May, India was facing around 300,000 new cases each day. People were dying in ambulances and parking lots of hospitals, unable to even be properly treated. Hospitals, large and small, across the country were faced with the same issue: stores of oxygen were depleting at an alarming rate, to the point where they were barely getting by day to day. This could be the result of many different factors including poor planning and coordination. In the East and the South, there was an excess of oxygen production and storage, while hospitals put out SOS notices in other regions. The lag in transportation and communication cost many patients their lives. Part of the blame for this incident could also be placed on the decades of neglect and lack of spending on public health - which is now on the brink of collapsing.
The federal government of India, led by prime minister Narendra Modi, faced criticism before everything went down. This was not only his resistance against locking down but also for allowing election rallies and a massive Hindu festival to take place. While the world was going through another wave, instead of preparing for it to come to India, they celebrated their ‘victory’ over the virus in large gatherings which indefinitely led to their demise. At the beginning of the oxygen crisis, the government even denied that they were having shortages.
This is not the first time that the country has faced an oxygen shortage. In fact, the same thing happened about seven months ago. Comparatively, it wasn’t as bad as the crisis India faced in April.
At Saroj Hospital, one of the best-equipped hospitals in the country’s capital, families with a relative on a ventilator were literally charged with the responsibility of finding air for them to breathe. They were responsible for acquiring an oxygen tank, empty or full, because of the desperate situation. Relatives would stand in line for hours on end to fill their tank with oxygen for the day, not knowing if they would be able to get it the next day. Doctors and staff were busier trying to acquire oxygen than actually treating their patients. The responsibility of your family’s life is something that we have not experienced, but for those in India, they have. Patients were dying by the dozens each night due to the absence of air to breathe.
To get oxygen for those in need, the government banned most oxygen-consuming industries to divert supplies to the medical field. They also started an “oxygen press”, using trains to carry tankers wherever there was a high oxygen demand. The Indian Air Force also airlifted oxygen from military bases. Countries like Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates stepped in by sending oxygen and other forms of aid as well. Many NGOs and charitable organizations provided aid for those who could not acquire a bed or oxygen tank. Individuals who were in a position to help others even stepped up to do their part. Tehseen Poonawalla, a politician, helped small hospitals when they were about to run out of oxygen by connecting them to those who were equipped to provide aid.
While the brunt of this happened, at the end of April and early May, there is still no certainty that India and other countries. We have already seen how under-preparing has led to the unnecessary loss of lives. It is now in the hands of those in power to learn from their past mistakes so that Indian citizens do not continue to suffer from their misjudgements.
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