Union Minister for Health Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday, 3 December, asked the Opposition parties to stop politicising the oxygen shortage during the second COVID-19 wave.
Addressing the Lok Sabha during the Question Hour, Mandaviya said that the Centre had made all possible efforts to heighten the production and availability of oxygen during the COVID-19 surge.
"Sadly, even in such a situation, many people did not refrain from playing politics... I appeal, take note of our honest efforts. This is not a subject of politics," he was quoted as saying by news agency PTI.
The health minister stated that despite the Centre writing to the states thrice, requesting data on oxygen-related deaths, only Punjab had reported four suspected deaths due to the lack of the life-saving gas.
"A total of 19 states responded and it's only Punjab which stated in writing that four suspected deaths were there (in the state) and that too being investigated. We made it public. Still, politics is happening," he said, PTI reported.
Reports claiming an acute paucity of oxygen had emerged from various parts of the country during the devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social media platforms were inundated with desperate appeals for oxygen cylinders and concentrators for ailing patients during the months of April and May.
Many hospitals at the time, including prominent ones in Delhi, had put out SOS calls for oxygen, as patients with severe disease were left gasping for breath on a dwindling supply of the gas.
"No deaths due to lack of oxygen has been specifically reported by states/UTs,” the government of India had told the Rajya Sabha in July.
(With inputs from PTI.)
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