India’s Modi refused to find oxygen from Pakistan, and Punjab took a breath. Coronavirus pandemic news

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Amritsar, India – Amidst the incredible shortage of medical oxygen, the Punjab government contacted Prime Minister Narendra Modi to facilitate the establishment of an “oxygen corridor” with India’s main neighbor Pakistan, Pakistan and the Northwestern States It has a border of 550 kilometers (342 miles) long.

The Chief Minister of Punjab State Amarinder Singh and other politicians in the state made at least eight requests for Modi to purchase oxygen from Pakistan. The city of Lahore in Pakistan is only 50 kilometers away from Amritsar (31 mile).

The country’s prime minister, Imran Khan, provided assistance to India on April 25, which is a need to buy oxygen from Pakistan. The well-known Edhi charity in Pakistan has also voluntarily provided medical assistance in the event of an increase in COVID-19 cases in the country.

However, with the deadly second coronavirus wave causing thousands of deaths every day, Modi’s Hindu nationalist Baladia Janata Party (BJP) government refused to seek any help from its “enemy country” .

A technician unloads an empty oxygen cylinder in a hospital in Ludhiana [Gurkirat Singh/Al Jazeera]

Gurjit Singh Aujla, a member of Parliament in Amritsar, told Al Jazeera: “It turns out that this kind of denial is fatal to patients in Punjab. They don’t know the last breath. “

Aujla wrote to Modi on April 26, because it is geographically close, so it hopes to establish a special oxygen channel with Pakistan. When he did not receive a reply from the prime minister, he wrote again on April 27, and then wrote more letters on May 2 and May 5.

At the same time, Singh also issued a statement on May 4, saying that the center rejected his proposal to allow local industrial institutions in Punjab to import oxygen from Pakistan through the Ouaga-Atari border near Amritsar.

More than ten days have passed since the center refused, but the interruption of the oxygen supply chain in Punjab has not been restored.

Last week, at least three hospitals in Amritsar issued emergency calls for help, saying that their oxygen buffers had been exhausted. The local government arranged life-saving gas from nearby areas.

A government official who requested anonymity stated that he had forgotten the number of SOS messages released by the hospital in the past few days. He told Al Jazeera: “Every few hours every day, a hospital receives calls for help.”

Patients wearing masks wait in the lobby of a hospital in Batinda [Lalita Verma/Al Jazeera]

From 3,003 coronavirus patients in Punjab on April 13 to 6,947 patients on May 17, the state’s infection rate more than tripled in one month.

As of Monday, there are 73,616 cases in Punjab, which may exceed 100,000 by next week.

State government data shows that in these active cases, at least 25% to 30% of patients require regular oxygen support. The Ministry of Health of India estimates that severe COVID-19 patients need 10-60 liters of oxygen per minute.

The managing director of the hospital, Sunil Devgan, told Al Jazeera that on April 24, six patients died at the Neelkanth Hospital in Amritsar after the facility ran out of oxygen.

“On April 23, our hospital had a shocking lack of oxygen. Due to the pandemic, our consumption increased from 20 cylinders a day to 100 cylinders. On the evening of April 23, we would lose patients almost every half an hour. “He says.

Of the six people who died in the hospital that night due to lack of oxygen, five were being treated for COVID-19.

“Despite countless SOS calls, no one came to help us. Even now, after so many days, we still have difficulty getting oxygen on time. According to the instructions of the Punjab government, we do not accept severe COVID-19 patients now,” Devgan said .

On April 30, Punjab’s daily oxygen consumption was 203.8 metric tons (MT). On May 7, it reached 250.6 metric tons, an increase of nearly 50 metric tons in a week. On May 17, it jumped to 304 tons.

However, the central government issued a two-week urgent request on May 11 to provide at least 300 metric tons of oxygen per day. The central government increased the oxygen limit in Punjab to 247 metric tons.

Of the 247 tons of oxygen allocated, nearly 70 tons of oxygen came from a factory in Bokaro, a city in the eastern state of Jalkhand, more than 1,750 kilometers (1,088 miles) from the factory. The Punjab hospital said that oxygen from Bokaro could hardly arrive on time.

As of May 7, due to logistical problems, other factories in the country also had an oxygen shortage of 211 metric tons. Officials said that Punjab’s daily oxygen demand far exceeded the state’s daily oxygen demand.

In the logistical challenge of obtaining oxygen from Jharkhand, Singh once again urged Modi on May 10 to increase the total oxygen quota for plants in the states of Punjab.

In the case of oxygen shortage in Punjab, the doctor is checking the oxygen concentrator. Credit – Gurkirat Singh

“Why can we get oxygen from Lahore, which is only 50 kilometers away, and why wait for Bokaro, 1758 kilometers away, to provide oxygen?” Oira told Al Jazeera.

The congressman suggested that the two countries establish a barter system where they can exchange the necessary resources they need.

He said: “When the number of cases in Pakistan is also rising, this kind of resource sharing system through the Ouaga-Atari border can serve both countries.”

India has received aid from China and other Islamic countries. If it is ashamed and cannot get help from its so-called enemies, then we can pay or exchange sugar or wheat for barter trade to Pakistan.

“If we can provide vaccines to Pakistan, why not take oxygen from them? Who knows that this might improve our relationship with Pakistan,” he said.

Since the Indian subcontinent gained independence from British rule in 1947, the relationship between the two countries has been tense and split into a Muslim-majority Pakistan through a bloody split.

The two nuclear-armed nations have fought two of the three major wars on the disputed Himalayan territory of Kashmir. They claim to have sufficient territory but have ruled parts of it. The tension between the two countries is India reached its peak in 2019 when India abolished its special status. It controls the Kashmir region.

However, after a rare thaw in relations between the two countries at the beginning of this year, the two countries reaffirmed their commitment to reach a 2003 ceasefire agreement along the disputed border in Kashmir. After the thawing, Modi and Khan exchanged letters, and the leaders of the two countries emphasized the necessity of dialogue and cordial relations.

In addition to writing to Modi, Aujla also sent several letters to Federal Minister of Health Harsh Vardhan. He also contacted Om Birla, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Speaker of Parliament, led by Subrahmanyam Jaishankar on April 29. He said that only Birla answered him.

When Al Jazeera requested an official comment on the matter, the Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied any correspondence with Punjab State that imported oxygen from Pakistan. Vardhan and other health ministers also did not respond to e-mail queries sent by Al Jazeera.

BJP spokesperson Vijay Chauthaiwale said that since the matter is related to the bilateral relationship between India and Pakistan, he will not comment on the matter.

Oira was worried. “The situation in Punjab is even worse than holding hands. The tragedy is waiting to happen,” he told Al Jazeera.



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