14 COVID-19 patients die in GGH Anantapur due to fault in oxygen supply

COVID sample collection halted in Anantapur.

More than 14 COVID19 patients died in Government General Hospital at Anantapur on Saturday from 9 a.m. and out of them 10 died at 6.40 p.m. due to some snag in the oxygen supply pipeline. Out of the 10 who died, six lost their lives in the Orthopaedic Ward and four died in the Chest Ward. The four others were among the 180 patients on Oxygen Support and another 47 in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and various other wards. District Collector Gandham Chandrudu had denied reports in the social media and TV News reports that 10 persons had died by 1 p.m. in the hospital due to lack of oxygen and Anantapur Urban MLA Anantha Venkatarami Reddy just then got several calls from the patients complaining about the low pressure in oxygen supply. “I alerted the GGH Superintendent KSS Venkateswara Rao and Resident Medical Officer about the low pressure of Oxygen, but they were in the denial and corrected themselves after a series of deaths took place in the evening,” Mr. Venkataramireddy told The Hindu. At 7 p.m. Joint Collector Nishant Kumar and other district officials went to the hospital and tried to fix the oxygen pipeline from 13KL LMO tank and vaporisers. First the LMO tank mechanic was called, but everything was fine there and by 7.30 p.m. they identified the places where the snag of there and repair works were on till 9 p.m. and then the District Collector too arrived to take stock of the situation.