2,000 beds ready, 1,000 more in a week; but lack of oxygen delays patient intake

New Delhi: The capital has over 2,000 beds ready for Covid-19 patients and work is happening on war footing to set up 1,000 more ICU beds. However, the oxygen crisis has caused a delay in providing these much-needed beds to patients.
Sardar Patel Covid Care Centre at Radha Soami Satsang Beas in south Delhi’s Chhatarpur was restarted last week with 150 oxygen beds, with plans of increasing the capacity to 5,000 eventually.However, only about 300 of the 500 beds are currently operational. Another 500 have been added but due to the lack of oxygen, which resulted in a major crisis on Monday, these beds can’t be used.
Another centre on the campus of Sant Nirankari Samagam Ashram in north Delhi’s Burari also has 1,000 beds ready, but unable to admit many patients because of oxygen shortage.
On Tuesday, Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia and health minister Satyendar Jain visited two upcoming Covid care centres near Lok Nayak and GTB hospitals. “To augment the number of ICU and oxygen beds, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had decided to convert Ramlila Maidan into a Covid care centre. We visited the location to take stock of the 500 ICU beds being set up there,” Sisodia said. He tweeted that the work was happening on a war footing and the beds were expected to be ready by next week. He also tweeted that Delhi salutes everyone involved in the creation of the Covid hospital in such a short time by working day and night.
Jain tweeted that work was on in full swing for the 1,000 ICU beds in both the upcoming centres.
The Delhi government said that it is working to increase the capacity in its hospitals from 5,200 to 7,200 beds. ‘Government is working round-the-clock to convert non-Covid hospitals into Covid hospitals to increase capacity,’ a statement said.