On Tuesday, as many as 24 patients died after the Chamarajanagar district hospital in the southern state of Karnataka allegedly ran out of oxygen. Hospital SOS: 'Kindly help us in procuring '

Other hospitals have not been as fortunate. In the end, they didn't have to rely on the small cylinders that families were able to scrounge up. 'It's nothing!'Īt Saroj Hospital, local government officials eventually got a giant tanker to deliver oxygen, replenishing stocks for Gupta's mother and other patients. 'One percent of GDP is a pathetic state of affairs,' Bal says. Scooter riders carry oxygen cylinders, hoping to find a source where they can refill the containers, in Bengaluru on May 1. 'We're in contact with NGOs, everybody! We're using every kind of pressure, every contact. 'We are not getting full cylinders, so we are trying to find empty cylinders, because we can still get those filled,' Gupta explained to local media outside the hospital last month. So they had to go out and find oxygen cylinders to bring to the hospital to keep their loved ones alive.

Then the hospital told Gupta and other families that its oxygen supply had run out. She was on a ventilator in intensive care. Her mother was one of 140 COVID-19 patients in Saroj Hospital, one of the best-equipped hospitals in India's capital, New Delhi. MUMBAI, India - Sanchi Gupta was running around, trying to get her hands on an oxygen cylinder - even an empty one.

A patient breathes with the help of oxygen provided at a tent installed at a gurdwara, a place of worship for Sikhs, in Ghaziabad, India, on May 2.

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