18/04/2024
The last cylinder
18th April 2021
Darkest day of my life
May be for whole nagpur for generations to come
pandemic #
COVID second wave was at peak, almost all the markets, schools, offices were closed as per government directions .. only emergency services were open. We could feel what is called as deserted look, there was silence on roads, markets, bus stations, railway stations, gardens, parks , everywhere.... Only one sound was breaching that silence "ambulance siren" carrying critical patients searching for the hospital beds as there were no enough beds to cater so much load of the patients.Only two places where one could find rush... one was hospital and other one was ghat. There were waiting lists at both places. Never seen in my life all the almost all ghats were busy .. burning in heat ..carrying out final rituals and pittiest thing was all these rituals were carried out without close relatives.
It was horrible situation almost patients at every one's place , every one sustained some loss in terms of death of near ones or someone is critical at hospital.. most unfortunate thing was many died at home or in ambulance waiting for medical services.
So all days were bad, some are worse and this one was the most worse ...18th April 2021.
On that day I lost my grand uncle in front of my eyes without any adequate medical help though I was doctor and running COVID hospital, same day his son was admitted and was critical later on requiring life support. This story must be common at many homes at Nagpur.
Nagpur was facing severe shortage of oxygen, every hospital management was busy in arranging resources for hospital specially oxygen.
That night at 9pm there were around 45 jumbo cylinders at our hospital and 10 patients in ICU on high flow, rest patients were reasonably stable so we were bit relaxed as next expected delivery of oxygen batch on next day by noon.
At 12 night we got call from hospital " sir only 25 cylinders left" 20 jumbo cylinders finished in just 3 hours ...no way we could sustain this till next day afternoon. So we all had emergency discussion. Our team at hospitals were reviewing situation and checking for oxygen leaks if any as it was not expected. Oxygen installation team was called for checking leaks .. luckly we could find one that was taken care of to curtail the loss.
Other team went to butibori area, were maximum oxygen plants were running, but situation there was also helpless...there were long ques at every oxygen refilling center, some oxygen trollies were there for almost more than 24 hrs. After lots of efforts and requests we could 5 jumbo cylinders... that still was not enough for us.
Meanwhile I got two bad news.
My uncle who was admitted that day shifted to ICU in view of severe hypoxia for life support. That hospital too was in sailing in same boat like ours.
Other news was more scary , few hospitals at nagpur declared emergency and informed relatives that irrespective of all the efforts they could not run the hospital due to severe oxygen shortage and they could just sustain for few hours so requesting them to find safe place for their respective patients and hospitals were also trying hard for the same.
By early morning 4am we could control the speed of oxygen usage but still that was not enough. We requested our regular oxygen supplier to deliver the next batch as early as he could, he just said ' will try' ..... He too must be facing many issues.We were calling every where for oxygen.
Morning 8 am only 3 to 4 cylinders were left, next batch was expected by 9am but that was not very sure as theye too were facing the problems from demand and supply, each one of us could sense end game for us, at that point one of our Dr friend called for some other reason. We explained him the situation and pursuaded him.... he agreed to send one , we sent an ambulance to other corner of Nagpur 15 km away just to collect one cylinder... so that was the importance of oxygen at that point of time.
This was the picture of that last cylinder, 10 patients on high flow oxygen and that one is holding the battle for all.....rest oxygen connectors hagging like waiting for oxygen cylinders and ours situation was no different, waiting for the same ... Some kind of help.....as we all were exhausted with our resources, efforts and hope.I don't know who has clicked this pic but it was posted on our WA group for panic information.
Clock was ticking faster as our heart beats.. It was scary situation, with teary eyes and heavy hearts we were just praying with each passing moment ....
Just 5 min left and new batch of cylinder arrived... What a relief.
For us that oxygen cylinder was God's angel to rescue us ..
The last one
The saviour one
Now this is our DP for group 😊
