KATHMANDU, May 10: The inflow of COVID-infected people from different districts of the western region including Banke is increasing day by day at Nepalgunj Medical College Teaching Hospital, Kohalpur. The hospital is finding it difficult to cope with the overwhelming number of infected patients. All the beds in the hospital are already full. Due to lack of oxygen, the hospital is treating only a limited number of COVID infected. A number of infected people are forced to lose their lives due to lack of hospital beds.
As many as 80 infected people are being treated at the hospital, which has been operating COVID Ward with a capacity of 135 beds till Sunday afternoon. The hospital had stated a few days ago that it was not in position to admit any new patients due to lack of oxygen. A tanker of liquid oxygen arrived at the hospital on Sunday but doctors at the hospital say it was not enough.
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Dr Dinesh Shrestha, Assistant Director of the Medical College, said that even though a tanker of liquid oxygen arrived at the Teaching Hospital, Kohalpur on Sunday afternoon, it would not last many days. "The oxygen will last only five days, but it will bring some relief," he told Republica, adding that the hospital will face shortage of oxygen gas after five days.
Following the spread of news on social media about the delivery of oxygen tanks at hospitals, Shrestha said they received calls for admission of new patients from different districts throughout the day. Chief Minister of Lumbini Province Shankar Pokharel had written a social media status saying that an oxygen tank with liquid had reached the Nepalgunj Medical College on Sunday morning
"I only mentioned that a tanker of liquid oxygen was coming from Birgunj and will reach Nepalgunj by evening, but he (Chief Minister) wrote on Facebook in the morning that the oxygen had reached," Shrestha said. People of Banke had expressed their indignation on social media saying that the Chief Minister had spread wrong information.
