Coronavirus crisis | With hospitals stretched to capacity, housing societies in Mumbai are renting oxygen cylinders: Report

With Mumbai facing an acute shortage of ICU beds in private hospitals, there have been situations where patients have been asked to wait.

Some housing societies and people in Mumbai are renting oxygen cylinders for use in case of a health emergency. This comes at a time when the city is scrambling to expand healthcare facilities and add Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

A resident of Orchid Towers in Mumbai Central said as per a report by The Economic Times: “We have got two oxygen cylinders in our society, we decided to get it after seeing how people are being turned away from hospitals due to lack of beds. We have a doctor in our complex and we have learnt how to operate it.”

The newspaper has also quoted Mumbadevi Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) Amin Patel as saying, “I am myself working to set up a 200 oxygen cylinder bank in the city that would cater to patients who are not able to get beds in the city.”

The city is facing an acute shortage of ICU beds in private hospitals. This has led to situation where patients have been informed by hospitals that there is a waiting period.

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With around 54,758 confirmed cases reported so far, Maharashtra is the worst-affected state in the country.

However, the situation in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) seems to be gloomy. Of the 54,758 cases, 32,974 are from Mumbai city. The death toll in the state capital reached 1,065 on May 26.

Currently 5,67,622 people are in home quarantine and 35,200 in institutional quarantine in the state, the official said.

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