Delhi HC urges centre to ensure supply of oxygen to hospitals for COVID patients

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High court, emphasising that it is the government's responsibility to provide oxygen to medical facilities, slammed the centre yesterday and asked it to ensure the supply of oxygen to hospitals for COVID-19 patients anyhow.

It also warned that if medical oxygen to hospitals is cut off, all hell will break loose.

A bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli questioned the centre: “Do you want to see thousands of people die in the country?”

The bench slammed it for failing to divert enough oxygen supply from industries to hospitals.

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“We will have to enforce people's fundamental rights and direct them to beg, borrow, steal, and do whatever they have to do. We can't see people dying because people are dying,” the court stated.

“Every 10 days, we have doubled the number of (Covid-19) cases, and the reality on the ground is that there is a severe lack of oxygen, which is evident to all. It's not that it's fabricated or that it's being miscast. It is present. “We cannot close our eyes to it,” the court added.

During the extraordinary hearing, the court stated that the responsibility for ensuring oxygen supply rested squarely on the shoulders of the Central Government, and that if necessary, the entire supply of oxygen to industries such as steel and petroleum could be diverted for medical purposes.

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The court further stated that it is hopeful that the emergent needs of various hospitals in Delhi will be met so that no fatalities occur as a result of the discontinuation of oxygen supply to seriously ill COVID patients and other patients who require oxygen support until it take up the matter and pass orders today,”

The court adjourned the hearing to today afternoon.

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