SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightGetty ImagesHospitals in Delhi started facing shortages of oxygen nearly two weeks ago. The crisis shows few signs of abating. At least 12 patients, including a doctor, died when a prominent hospital ran out of oxygen on Saturday. Outside hospitals, families of patients who can’t find a bed are struggling to get hold of portable cylinders – sometimes standing in queues for up to 12 hours.Several big hospitals in Delhi are relying on daily oxygen supplies but they are not getting enough to keep some as backup in case of emergency. One doctor described the situation as frightening, explaining: “Once you’ve used up your main tank, there is nothing to fall back on.”The situation is worse still in small hospitals that don’t have storage tanks and have to rely on big cylinders. And the oxygen crisis comes as coronavirus cases continue to surge. Delhi alone reported more than 25,000 new infections and 412 deaths on Sunday.Indians’ desperate wait for Covid jab to get longerDelhi running out of space to cremate Covid deadDeadly Covid wave rips through small-town IndiaIndia, meanwhile, over the weekend recorded its highest daily coronavirus death toll since the pandemic began, and became the first country to register more than 400,000 new cases in a single day.’It’s a battle every day’Dr Gautam Singh, who runs the Shri Ram Singh hospital, says he has 50 Covid beds and space for 16 ICU patients, but has had to refuse admissions as there is no guarantee of oxygen supply.He has put out a number of SOS calls in the past few days, getting oxygen just in time to avoid disaster. “It’s a battle we are fighting every day,” he says. “Half of my hospital staff are on the road with cylinders to get them filled every day, going from one place to another.”Below is a recent heart-breaking appeal from him that I tweeted. Hear from the head of the hospital. This was two days ago and he got help. But more can be done. pic.twitter.com/geGzPeppxZ— Vikas Pandey (@BBCVikas) April 28, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterDr Singh says the possibility of patients dying without oxygen in the hospital stops him from sleeping.”I should be concentrating on treating my patients, and not running around to get oxygen,” he says.Other hospital owners are also facing the same ordeal. One woman whose family runs a hospital in Delhi says there was no coordination among the authorities when the crisis started. “For those few days, we had no idea who was the relevant person to contact and who had the authority to resolve the issue,” she recalls. She says the situation is “slightly better now” but there is still uncertainty over the supply which is affecting their ability to admit more patients. “Each time someone reaches out asking if I have a lead for an oxygen bed, I feel terrible saying no because I don’t.”image copyrightGetty ImagesSOS calls from hospitals, particularly small ones that rely on cylinders and don’t have a storage tank, come almost every day. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has repeatedly said that the city was not getting enough oxygen from the federal government, which allocates oxygen quotas to states.Federal officials say there is no shortage of oxygen, but that the challenge has come from transportation. image copyrightGetty ImagesDelhi’s high court on Saturday said “enough is enough”.”You [the government] have to arrange everything now. You have made the allocations. You have to fulfil it,” it said.’People are paying the price’ But the situation on the ground is still dire.”People are paying a price for the political wrangling between the state and federal government. Sometimes the price is their life,” one analyst said.Families who have managed to find a bed are also under extreme stress because of the uncertainty over oxygen supplies. The last 48 hours have been excruciating for Altaf Shamsi. He and his entire family tested positive for Covid-19 last week.His pregnant wife became seriously ill and had to be moved to a hospital where she gave birth to a girl on Friday. A few hours after a complicated birth, she had to be put on a ventilator, where she remains in a critical condition. Altaf was then told that his father had died in another hospital, while at the same time the hospital where his wife and baby are in an ICU said it was running out of oxygen.The hospital eventually got a day’s worth of emergency supply, but Altaf is worried about issues arising again.”Who knows what will happen tomorrow?” he says.We request consistent supply of Liquid Oxygen at Madhukar Rainbow Children’s Hospital, Malviya Nagar, New Delhi#Oxygen #SOS #COVIDEmergency @raghav_chadha @rashtrapatibhvn @CMODelhi @LtGovDelhi @attorneybharti @PMOIndia @aajtak @ndtv @CNN @tehseenp @TOIIndiaNews @DOJPH— Rainbow Children’s Hospitals (@RCH_India) May 2, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterAnd in addition to concerns over oxygen, the hospital has been asking him to move his wife to another facility, saying they do not have sufficient staffing.It means he has been left to monitor his wife’s oxygen levels and fever. “You can’t even imagine the pain I am going through,” he says.’My father was running out of oxygen’Portable oxygen cylinders are the only way for patients in a serious condition to keep breathing at home when they can’t find a hospital bed – a major issue in Delhi. Abhishek Sharma’s father’s oxygen levels started dropping on Saturday. He rushed to the market to get him a cylinder. After going to more than a dozen shops, he found a small cylinder which was good enough to last just six hours. He later went out and paid $944 (£683) to buy a big cylinder but it was empty. He took it to several filling stations but only one was willing to help and the queue was very long.image copyrightGetty Images”With each passing minute in the queue, my father was running out of oxygen. I couldn’t ask anybody to let me jump the queue as everybody was in the same situation. I got the cylinder refilled after six hours in the line, but tomorrow I will have to do the same again,” he says.”I shudder to think what will happen if I am not able to get the cylinder refilled.”Public policy and health systems expert Dr Chandrakant Lahariya says the government had been warning about “the potential crisis” but did not take any action. A parliamentary standing committee on health warned about inadequate supply of oxygen and “grossly inadequate” government hospital beds in November. Dr Lahariya says the medical oxygen crisis in India was caused by a lack of planning in fixing the distribution and transportation networks. But many are shocked that two weeks after the crisis began, patients in India’s capital are still gasping for breath, and there seems to be no end in sight.’We have set up a war room’In the face of the crisis, concerned citizens have been stepping in to help out those in distress.Among the famous faces lending support are social activist and politician Tehseen Poonawalla, politician Dilip Pandey, activist and politician Srinivas B V and actor Sonu Sood.Mr Poonawalla has been helping small hospitals when they are about to run out of oxygen. He says he is “connecting those in need with those who are in a position to help”. “We have set up a war room where a small team is working with me. I am just calling up people who I know – some of the whom are in other states but are eager to help,” he says.image copyrightGetty ImagesBut he says “the situation is becoming more dire with each passing day”. “The government needs to step in and take charge because people like me don’t have infinite resources to help every person or hospital in need.”The woman whose family runs a hospital in Delhi echoed these concerns. “I can’t sleep at nights thinking that those people who died because of a lack of oxygen could have been saved. Many of them have families, some have small children. How will we ever explain to them what happened when they grow up and ask questions?”

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingMost hospitals in Delhi and many other cities in India have completely run out of beds, forcing people to find ways to get treatment for sick patients at home. But even that is proving to be a difficult task as prices of oxygen cylinders, concentrators and essential medicines have skyrocketed on the black market. Anshu Priya spent most of her Sunday looking for an oxygen cylinder as her father-in-law’s condition continued to deteriorate. She couldn’t find any hospital bed in Delhi or in its suburb of Noida. Her search for an oxygen cylinder in shops was also futile, forcing her to turn to the black market.She paid the hefty amount of 50,000 rupees ($670; £480) to procure a cylinder from the black market. It costs 6,000 rupees in normal times. Her mother-in-law is also struggling to breathe and Anshu is now worried about her. She says she may not be able to afford another cylinder on the black market.Countries send urgent aid to Covid-stricken IndiaPatients die without oxygen amid Delhi Covid surgeWhy India is running out of oxygen againHow have you been affected by coronavirus in India? Email: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.The BBC also called several oxygen cylinder suppliers and most of them asked for at least 10 times more than the normal price. Her struggle is not unique. Hospitals in many cities, including Delhi, Noida, Lucknow, Allahabad and Indore, have run out of beds, leaving families to rely on makeshift arrangements at home. The situation is particularly dire in Delhi where there are no ICU beds left. Families, those who can afford it, are hiring nurses and remote consulting a doctor to keep their loved ones breathing. India has been reporting more than 300,000 cases for days, setting new daily global records. On Monday, it had the highest number of daily coronavirus cases for a fifth straight day, reporting 352,991 new infections and another 2,812 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.This sharp spike has overwhelmed the healthcare system of many cities, and left no choice for families but to arrange whatever they can at home for their sick loved ones. But the struggles are huge from getting blood tests done to getting a CT scan or x-ray.Labs are overrun and it’s taking up to three days for test results to come back. This is making it harder for treating doctors to assess the progression of the disease. CT scans are also used by doctors to asses the condition of the patient but it’s taking days to get an appointment.Doctors say that these delays are putting many patients at risk. RT-PCR tests are also taking days. I know several sick patients who found a bed but couldn’t get admitted as they didn’t have a positive Covid report. Back to getting treatment at home, Anuj Tiwari hired a nurse to assist in the treatment of his brother at home after he was refused admission in many hospitals. image copyrightGetty ImagesSome said they didn’t have any free beds and others said they were not taking new patients due to continuing uncertainty over the supply of oxygen. A number of patients have died in Delhi due to a lack of oxygen supply. The city’s hospitals are desperate and some have been issuing daily warnings, saying they are left with just a few hours of oxygen. Then the government swings into action and tankers are sent, which is often enough to run the hospital for a day.A doctor in Delhi said that was how hospitals were working and “there are real fears now that a big tragedy may happen”. Given the scenario at hospitals, Mr Tiwari paid a hefty amount to procure a concentrator – which can extract oxygen from the air – keep his brother breathing. The doctor also asked him to arrange the anti-viral drug remdesivir, which has been given emergency-use approval in India and is being prescribed widely by doctors. The benefits of the drug – which was originally developed to treat Ebola – are still being debated across the world. Mr Tiwari couldn’t find the drug in any medicine shop and eventually turned to the black market. His brother’s condition continues to be critical and the treating doctor says he may soon need a hospital where remdesvir could be administered. “There are no beds. What will I do? I can’t even take him anywhere else as I have already spent so much money and don’t have much left,” he said.He added that “the desperate battle to save Covid patients has shifted from hospitals to home”, and even that is proving to be a daunting task as “we don’t have easy access to oxygen”. Remdesivir is in such short supply that families of the patients who are being treated at home are rushing to procure it. They want to have the drug in case the patient is required to go to hospital and may need the drug.The BBC spoke to several dealers on the black market who said the supply was tight and that was why they were charging such high prices. The government has allowed seven firms to manufacture remdesvir in India and they have been told to ramp up production. But several promises of adequate supply from the government have failed to show any result on the ground. Epidemiologist Dr Lalit Kant says the decision to ramp up production was taken too late and the government should have been prepared for the second wave. “But somehow the drug is available in the black market, so there is some leakage in the supply system which the regulators haven’t been able to plug,” he says.”We learnt nothing from the first wave.”image copyrightGetty ImagesAnother drug that is in huge demand is tocilizumab. It is normally used to treat arthritis but studies have shown that it can reduce the chances of a very sick patient needing to go on a ventilator. Doctors are prescribing the drug mostly to patients who are severely sick. But it has disappeared from the market. Cipla, the Indian company that imports and sells the drug, has been struggling to meet the rising demand.It usually costs around 32,480 rupees for a vial of 400mg. But Kamal Kumar paid 250,000 rupees to buy one dose for his father. He said the price was “mind boggling” but he had no other option but to pay.But not many in India can afford to pay the price and they are being exploited in their desperation to save their loved ones. Public health expert Anant Bhan says the government should have procured the drug in huge quantities. “Not many can afford to pay the official price of the drug, forget about the black market prices. This shows that there was no planning. The government failed to anticipate the wave and plan for it,” he says.”People have been left to their own fate.”CheatingFake remdesivir has also appeared in the black market. When the BBC questioned a dealer that the drug he was offering seemed fake as the firm manufacturing it wasn’t on the list of the companies licensed to produce it in India, he replied that it was “100% original”.The packaging was also full of spelling errors. But he shrugged and asked me to get it tested in any laboratory. The firm also has no presence on the internet.image copyrightGetty ImagesBut such is the desperation that people are willing to buy even questionable drugs. And some have been cheated as well. People are constantly sharing phone numbers of suppliers who can provide anything from oxygen to medicines. But not all of these numbers are verified.An IT worker, who did not want to be named, said that he desperately needed to buy an oxygen cylinder and remdesivir, and he got a lead from Twitter. When he contacted the person, he was told to deposit 10,000 rupees as advance payment.”The moment I sent the money, the person blocked my number,” he said.Desperation is driving people to trust anything in the hour of need and that seems to be fuelling the black market. Several state governments have promised to crack down on black marketing of remdesivir and some arrests have also been made. But the black market seems unfazed.Mr Tiwari says people like him don’t have any choice but to pay more.”It seems you can’t get treated in hospitals, and now you can’t save your loved ones even at home.”How have you been affected by coronavirus in India? Tell us your story by emailing: haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk.Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also get in touch in the following ways:WhatsApp: +44 7756 165803Tweet: @BBC_HaveYourSayUpload your pictures/video hereOr fill out the form belowPlease read our terms & conditions and privacy policy

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SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightReutersAkhilesh Mishra started getting a fever and a cough last Thursday but he initially thought it was just the flu.Akhilesh began to worry the next day, when his father Yogendra developed similar symptoms. The two men decided to get Covid RT-PCR tests done and tried to book a slot online but the next available appointment was three days later.They finally managed to get a slot on Sunday. In the meantime, Yogendra was running a very high fever and his doctor advised him to look for a hospital bed, which turned out to be another daunting task. They were turned away by many private hospitals in the city of Noida and also in the capital, Delhi.The family finally managed to get a bed for him in a private hospital in Delhi and he is now recovering. ‘Covid lockdown will make us beg for food again”Think about ICU workers before you party’Is the world’s vaccine powerhouse running out of doses? Akhilesh had thought he would lose his father.”I felt depressed,” he said. “I feared that he was going to die without getting treatment. No son should have to go through what I went through. Everybody should have equal access to care.”The family’s story is not unique. Accounts of family members struggling to find a bed, or life-saving drugs or oxygen cylinders, are being reported all over India. In some cities, there is a long waiting list at the crematoriums.My otherwise healthy cousin in Ranchi passed away of covid symptoms last night. In his final hours neither could he get a Covid test (for days), nor could he get a hospital bed. Hospital won’t release the body without testing now. He’s not a stat. This is real.— अंशुल (@Ghair_Kanooni) April 15, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterMy best friend from school is suffering from #COVID-19, her lungs r failing, the hospital she is currently admitted in not equipped with #ventilator. She needs a ventilator. Please let me know if you have any leads of a hospital+ventilator in #Ahmedabad where she can be treated.— Anjali Jain (@helloanjali) April 15, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterBlack-marketing of drugsIn recent days in India, social media has been awash with desperate requests for help finding the drugs remdesivir and tocilizumab. The effectiveness of the two drugs is being debated across the world but some countries, including India, have given emergency use authorisation to both.The antiviral drug remdesivir is being prescribed by doctors across the country, and it is in high demand. India has banned exports, but manufacturers are still struggling to meet the demand. India has reported more than 150,000 Covid cases a day for the past three weeks.This is a call for help. Urgently need #Remdesivir for my mother who’s covid +ive and a chronic patient with Kartagener’s syndrome (a rare, severe lung disease). I am in Jamshedpur with her. She has high fever & her O2 is dropping despite continuous O2 support. Kindly amplify.— Sana Shakil (@sanashakil_TNIE) April 14, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterHetero Pharma, one of seven firms manufacturing remdesivir in India, said the company was trying to ramp up production. The BBC has found that the shortage in supply is leading to black marketing of the drug in Delhi and several other cities. At least three agents contacted by the BBC in Delhi agreed to supply each 100mg vial of remdesivir for 24,000 rupees ($320; £232) – five times the official price. India’s health ministry recommends six doses of 100mg vials for a patient for one course of the drug, but doctors say up to eight doses are needed in some cases.That is a lot of money for a middle-class family. “I had to spend so much money to get the drug, said Atul Garg, whose mother was admitted to a private hospital in Delhi. Finding the drug required “hundreds of calls and many anxious hours”, Atul said.Emergency. A friend in Bhopal is looking to hospitalise her Covid+ mother. All hospitals in the city she has reached out to refused bed’s availability. Any lead for bed/oxygen cylinder would be extremely helpful. Please spread the word. DM if you have leads.— Kumar Sambhav (@Kum_Sambhav) April 12, 2021
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on TwitterTocilizumab, a drug normally used to treat arthritis, has been proven to save lives in some clinical trials. But it has almost disappeared from the market in India. Rajiv Singhal, general secretary of the All India Chemists and Druggists Association, said his phone was ringing through the day as people asked him to help find the drugs. “The situation is so bad that I can’t even get the drugs for my own family members,” he said. “We are trying to take action against those who are black marketing, but I admit that there are leakages in the system.”Oxygen, X-rays and Covid testsThe demand for medical oxygen has also soared in several Indian sates. Several hospitals are turning patients away because they lack supplies. Maharashtra state Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray asked the federal government to send oxygen by army aircraft, as road transportation was taking too long to replenish the supply in hospitals.The situation is much worse in small cities and towns. When patients are not able to find a hospital bed, doctors advise them to arrange oxygen cylinders at home.Nabeel Ahmed’s father was diagnosed with Covid on Friday in a small town in northern India. Five days later, he started having difficulty in breathing. The doctor advised Nabeel to get an oxygen cylinder at home. He had to drive for four hours to another city to pick one up. “It took me eight hours to get a cylinder for my dad while he was struggling to breathe,” he said.Another major problem patients are facing in smaller towns is that private labs are refusing to conduct chest X-rays and CT scans. Doctors often ask for these tests to assess the progress of the disease. Yogesh Kumar, who lives in the northern town of Allahabad, said the only way for him to get an X-ray done was to either get admitted to a hospital or to get the test done at a government-run hospital, where the waiting list was too long.A doctor in Allahabad told the BBC: “It’s unbelievable that I am unable to get X-rays done for my patients. We have to just rely on blood reports to assess the disease in some cases, which is not ideal.”image copyrightReutersBusy crematoriums Crematoriums in many badly affected cities are running day and night. In some cases, families have to wait for several hours to cremate the deceased. A recent report said that the metal structure of the furnaces inside a crematorium in the western Indian city of Surat had started melting because it had been running day and night without any break. A short video clip went viral recently showing dozens of funeral pyres burning in the northern city of Lucknow in the middle of the night.Many staff members at crematoriums are working without a break. They are getting exhausted. Many around India are asking if these situations were avoidable.”We did not learn lessons from the first wave. We were aware that the second wave was coming but we didn’t plan to avoid unfortunate incidences like shortages of drugs, beds and oxygen,” said epidemiologist Dr Lalit Kant.”We didn’t even learn from other countries which faced similar circumstances,” he said.Some names have been changed on request.Read more stories by Vikas Pandey’Think about ICU workers before you party”I have cancer in my 30s, but can’t get a Covid jab’India in ‘delicate phase’ as Covid cases surgeThe vaccine pioneer the world forgot