Coronavirus | 100-bed COVID-19 hospital comes up in Srinagar

Moved by the crisis over oxygen in Delhi, the facility has been set up in 72 hours

Disturbing and moving pictures of pandemic-stricken patients from Delhi, gasping for oxygen on roads and outside hospitals, spurred a rare Good Samaritan effort in Srinagar this week — the setting up of a second-line of oxygen support in a pilgrimage centre-turned hospital in a record 72 hours. On Friday, at the Haj Complex, otherwise only used when local Muslims travel to Saudi Arabia for the pilgrimage to Mecca, 10 desperate patients showed up with a dip in their saturation levels, after failing to locate a hospital bed. “My mother was gasping for oxygen. She was immediately put on oxygen support here. By evening, we admitted her to a nearby hospital after a bed was declared vacant,” said Nazeer Ahmad (name changed), who was attending to the patient.