Centre asks states, UTs for data on deaths due to oxygen shortage: Report

New Delhi: The government of India has asked the states and Union Territories to provide statistics on deaths related to oxygen shortage during the second Covid wave earlier this year.

The compilation of the data is likely to be presented in the ongoing Monsoon Session of the Parliament, sources said.

The move comes following the opposition's continuous attack against the centre after it told the Parliament on July 20 that no states have reported any death due to oxygen during the second wave.

In a reply to a question of Congress' Rajya member K.C. Venugopal over deaths of people due to lack of oxygen, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar said that health is a state subject and detailed guidelines for reporting of deaths had been issued by Union Health Ministry to all states and Union Territories.

"Accordingly, all states/UTs report cases and deaths to Union Health Ministry on a regular basis. However, no deaths due to lack of oxygen has been specifically reported by states/UTs," she had said.

Pawar also said that Centre had supported the states and undertook a series of actions including provisioning medical oxygen, and other consumables to ensure clinical care of Covid-19 patients in view of steep rise of Covid-19 trajectory in the country during April-May 2021.

Noting that the supply of medical oxygen to hospitals is determined by contractual arrangements between the concerned hospital and the medical oxygen supplier, she said that due to unprecedented surge in demand of medical oxygen during the second wave, the demand in the country peaked to nearly 9,000 MT as compared to 3,095 MT during the first wave and the Centre had to step in to facilitate equitable distribution to the states.

The minister said that a dynamic and transparent framework for allocation of medical oxygen in consultation with states/UTs and all the stakeholders such as relevant ministries, manufacturers/suppliers of liquid oxygen etc. was prepared, and the active case load of the states and Union Territories was the primary determinant of allocation.

Pawar had said that the Centre, along with the state governments, took all possible steps to tackle the unprecedented surge in oxygen demand that arose in the second wave, including enhancement of liquid medical oxygen production from 5,700 MTs in August 2020 to 9,690 MTs in May 2021, restrictions on industrial use of oxygen, and augmentation of availability of containers.