Eleven COVID-19 patients died in Anantapur Sarvajana government hospital, in Andhra's Anantapur on May 1 at around 6 pm in the evening. The relatives of the deceased alleged that the patients died due to interruption in oxygen supply and attributed negligence on the part of the hospital staff while speaking to the media. However, officials denied the same and said that the patients died due to COVID-19 complications.
Vamsi, a relative of one of the patients, speaking to the media said, "Six patients from one ward itself have died while their oxygen saturation levels slowly dropped from 90 to 70, 60. There might be other cases in other wards. When the patients' relatives informed the hospital staff, they were told that the technical team for oxygen supply has to come and check the issue and did not help in any way. If there were normal oxygen cylinders, those lives could have been saved."
Meanwhile, following the allegations, Joint Collector Nishant Kumar inspected the hospital and submitted a report to the government stating that the deaths were not because of any issue in oxygen supply, but due to COVID-19 and other complications.
Releasing an official statement, Principal Health Secretary Anil Kumar Singhal said that there was no oxygen shortage in the state and medical oxygen was available in all the designated COVID-19 hospitals. He expressed grief over the 11 deaths at the Anantapur Sarvajana hospital and said that the deaths happened because of general complications due to COVID-19 and some due to health issues.
"We have inspected the Anantapur government general hospital and there is an uninterrupted oxygen supply from the oxygen plant to the patient's bed," added the statement released by the I & PR department of Andhra Pradesh.
In another incident, two patients died in a Kurnool private hospital, however, the officials denied any lack of oxygen supply.