The Ministry of Health & Family Welfare today wrote to state and Union Territories governments to provide the number of deaths due to lack of oxygen in the second wave.

“We have written a letter today to states and union territories asking from them the number of deaths which took place in the second wave due to lack of oxygen,” a government official said.

“We have been getting repeated questions on deaths due to lack of oxygen and that’s the reason we want states to give the numbers,” he added.

On being asked if there was a deadline by which the states have to submit the data, the government official added that this data needs to be submitted before the end of the Parliament session.

The government had last week responded to a question by Congress Rajya Sabha MP KC Venugopal, stating that there were no deaths reported due to lack of oxygen by states and Union Territories.

Health is a state subject and states and UTs regularly report the number of cases and deaths to the Centre, MoS Health Minister Bharati Praveen Pawar had said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.

“However, no deaths due to lack of oxygen have been specifically reported by states and UTs,” added Ms Pawar, responding to the question of whether COVID patients died on roads and hospitals due to oxygen shortage.

Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had said there have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and many other places across the country.   

“If there was no shortage of oxygen, why did hospitals move court? Hospitals and the media had been flagging oxygen shortage issues daily. Television channels showed that how hospitals were running out of life-saving gas. It is completely false to say that no one died due to oxygen shortage. There have been many deaths due to oxygen shortage in Delhi and many other places across the country,” he said