Private hospitals can’t ask attendants to arrange oxygen for patients: Noida CMO

Doctors in Gautam Buddh Nagar will not ask attendants to arrange oxygen for their Covid-19 positive patients at private hospitals, which will have to bear the onus of making such arrangements, chief medical officer Deepak Ohri said on Monday.

The development comes in the wake of multiple hospitals in Noida and Greater Noida claiming shortage of medical oxygen and several people facing acute difficulties in procuring oxygen cylinders for their patients in hospitals and home isolation.

However, the district administration has refuted such claims and said it has made adequate availability of oxygen and medicines and scaling up its efforts for more as the second wave of the pandemic hit people hard.

“All private doctors are being directed to not ask relative or attendant of any patient to procure oxygen cylinders because it leads to a problematic situation and causes trouble to everyone. Hence, it is being stopped with immediate effect,” the CMO stated in an order issued Monday evening.

Ohri said the direction has been issued to prevent causing inconvenience to attendants of Covid-19 patients as the responsibility for oxygen arrangement has been fixed on private hospitals.

“The attendants of Covid-19 patients are already in trouble and some hospitals have asked them to arrange oxygen cylinders for which they run pillar to post and stand in queues for hours. This cannot be allowed to happen. Now the hospitals will have to ensure availability of oxygen for patients and they can use their own staff to fetch cylinders if need be,” Ohri told PTI.

Asked about the situation of oxygen availability in hospitals of Gautam Buddh Nagar, the CMO said, “Hospitals are being provided oxygen in adequate quantity and there is no need for panic. More patients are admitted to hospitals depending on the availability of resources in them.”

Gautam Buddh Nagar is one of the worst-hit districts in Uttar Pradesh with 250 deaths linked to Covid-19 and 7,982 active cases while its overall infection tally stood at 45,792, according to officials figures on Monday.