Sending out an SOS that a “big tragedy” may happen due to oxygen crisis gripping Delhi’s hospitals for days in the face of the raging catastrophic wave of coronavirus, Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal today said the Centre should take over all oxygen plants through the Army. At a virtual review conference on the Covid situation, held by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with CMs of 10 worst Covid-hit states, Kejriwal urged the PM to direct chief ministers of all states to ensure smooth movement of oxygen tankers coming to the national capital.

“Covid patients are in major pain due to oxygen shortage in Delhi. We fear a big tragedy may happen due to oxygen shortage and we will never be able to forgive ourselves. Despite being a CM, I am not able to help the people of Delhi. I request you with folded hands to direct all CMs to ensure smooth movement of oxygen tankers coming to Delhi,” he said during the meeting.

“We need a national plan to deal with the crisis. Central government should take over all oxygen plants through the Army and every tanker coming out of the oxygen plant should be accompanied by an Army escort vehicle,” the Delhi CM said.

“We are thankful to the Central government that they increased our quota of oxygen but we have been trying for two days to get the oxygen supply. The oxygen supply scheduled to come to Delhi from Odisha and West Bengal should either be airlifted or brought through the ‘Oxygen Express’ started by the Centre,” he said.

Kejriwal also objected to different rates being charged from state governments and the Centre for the Covid vaccine, and said “one nation, one rate” policy should be followed.

“In a single country, why are we having two prices for the same thing. There should be one nation, one rate policy. The entire country should get vaccine at a similar rate. Every one in the country should be entitled to vaccine, medicines and oxygen, without any dispute,” he said.

The suggestions made by Kejriwal during the meeting were shared through its live telecast. Upset over this, PM Modi chided the Delhi CM, saying such live broadcast of an “inhouse meeting” with CMs was “against tradition and protocol”.

Kejriwal immediately expressed his apology. Later, the Delhi CM’s Office issued a statement saying, “The CM address was shared live because there has never been any instruction, written or verbal, from central govt that the said interaction could not be shared live. There have been multiple occasions of similar interactions where matters of public importance which had no confidential information were shared live. However, if any inconvenience was caused we highly regret that”.

The hospitals in the national capital have been sending out SOS messages about the escalating “oxygen emergency”.

Twenty-five of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital’s “sickest” Covid patients died in 24 hours and the lives of 60 more hung in precarious balance, officials said on Friday morning as the scramble for oxygen got increasingly more frantic in hospitals across the national capital.

After the unprecedented crisis of the morning, an oxygen tanker did reach Ganga Ram in central Delhi at 9.20 am but it was enough to last up to about five hours depending on consumption, an official at Ganga Ram said. Outside the hospitals, too, despair escalated.

Ambulances could be seen lined up, patients waited on stretchers, some visibly gasping for breath, and family members and friends desperately tried to get their loved ones a bed. But that was a tough task. On Thursday, Delhi recorded 306 Covid deaths and 26,169 cases with a positivity rate of 36.24 per cent, the highest since the pandemic began a year ago.

City hospitals grappled with depleting oxygen supply and, stretched to their limits, some requested the Delhi government to transfer patients to other healthcare facilities. While some hospitals have managed to make short-term arrangements, there is no immediate end to the crisis in sight, a government official had said yesterday.