A fire broke out in the intensive care unit on the second floor of the four-storeyed Vijay Vallabh Hospital at Virar, Maharashtra in the early hours of Friday which took the life of five women and eight men in the incident.
According to a fire official, the fire in the hospital treating Covid-19 patients in India killed a dozen people on Friday, as the country is already struggling to cope up with the world’s biggest surge of daily coronavirus infections since the pandemic started.
Health officials across northern and western India, including the capital, New Delhi, said they were in crisis, with most hospitals full and running out of oxygen.
A fire official said about the blaze that began in a critical care unit of the Vijay Vallabh hospital in a suburb of the city of Mumbai, “Twelve people have died in the fire, according to the information we have right now.”
The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has condoled deaths due to fire in COVID-19 hospital in Virar. He wished early recovery for the injured. The Prime Minister approved an ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh each from PMNRF for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the hospital fire in Virar, Maharashtra. Rs. 50,000 would be given to those seriously injured.
PM @narendramodi has approved an ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh each from PMNRF for the next of kin of those who have lost their lives due to the hospital fire in Virar, Maharashtra. Rs. 50,000 would be given to those seriously injured.
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) April 23, 2021
This is the latest accident that took place and hit a facility in India crowded with people infected with this virus. However, 22 Covid patients died at a hospital in Maharashtra state when their oxygen supply ran out after a leak in the tank on Wednesday 22.
On Thursday, India recorded 314,835 new infections, surpassing a record held by the United States in January when it hit 297,430 new cases. The U.S. tally has since fallen.
There is scarce medical oxygen and beds with major hospitals putting notices they had no space to take in patients. Meanwhile, Max Healthcare appealed on Twitter on Friday for emergency supplies of oxygen at its facility in Delhi.
“SOS – Less than an hour’s Oxygen supplies at Max Smart Hospital & Max Hospital Saket. Awaiting promised fresh supplies from INOX since 1 am,” the company said.
Similar desperate calls from hospitals and ordinary people have been posted on social media for days this week across the country.
Bhramar Mukherjee, a professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Michigan in the United States, said it was now as if there was no social safety net for Indians.
“Everyone is fighting for their own survival and trying to protect their loved ones. This is hard to watch,” Mukherjee said.
Health experts say India became complacent during the winter, when daily cases were about 10,000 and seemed to be under control, and lifted restrictions to allow big gatherings.
“Indians let down their collective guard. Instead of being bombarded with messages exhorting us to be vigilant, we heard self-congratulatory declarations of victory from our leaders, now cruelly exposed as mere self-assured hubris,” wrote Zarir F Udwadia, a pulmonologist and a member of the Maharashtra state government’s task force, in the Times of India.
A new more infectious variant of the virus, in particular a “double mutant” variant that originated in India, may have helped accelerate the surge, experts said.