20 die from COVID-19 in Indian hospital amid country’s oxygen shortage

Twenty patients died from COVID-19 in one night in New Delhi, India, hospital as the country struggles to treat patients amid a shortage of oxygen and a surge of infections.

The New York Times reported that a scheduled delivery of oxygen supplies to Jaipur Golden Hospital arrived seven hours late on Friday, leading the hospital’s reserves nearly depleted. 

Deep Kumar Baluja, medical director of the hospital, said that the patients began to die at around midnight.

“A little after that, the patients died — almost at midnight,” he said in a telephone interview with the Times. “One after the other.”

Baluja told Indian news outlet The Hindu that of the 3,600 liters of oxygen it was supposed to receive at 5 p.m., it only got 1,500 liters at midnight.

Baluja said the hospital had to stop admitting patients.

“We have oxygen only till 8 p.m. now and the situation will be the same as last night after it. We are getting very less supply of oxygen. Cannot run a hospital like this,” he said according to the news outlet.

India has experienced a shortage of oxygen amid a spike in coronavirus infections. The Times reported that 22 patients died at another hospital in Maharashtra State after a leak cut off their oxygen supply.

According to Reuters, India set a record for daily new coronavirus infections for the third day in a row, reporting over 345,000 new infections in the past 24 hours. The new number broke the record set Friday, when the nation reported over 330,000 in one day.

The daily death toll also reached its highest on Saturday, rising to 2,624, Reuters reported.

Overall, India has reported over 16.6 million cumulative coronavirus infections, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. The nation comes second behind the U.S., which has seen over 32 million infections.