Impending oxygen shortage fuels concerns
CHANDIGARH: Rising trajectory of Covid-19 cases in Punjab has started setting alarm bells ringing over the oxygen supply in hospitals across the state.
The state government, which has seen a sudden spike in oxygen demand for patients in hospitals in several districts, is scrambling to meet its daily requirement of 75-80 metric tonnes (MTs) of medical-grade oxygen. The demand varied from 15 to 20 MTs a day on an average before the coronavirus pandemic outbreak last year.
There are 14 air separator units (ASUs) in the state with an installed production capacity of 80 MTs and an equal number of repackaging or bottling plants with a capacity of 41 MTs which have depend upon the availability of liquid oxygen, particularly from manufacturing plants in Haryana, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. The supply of liquid oxygen has been irregular and set alarm bells ringing for the state authorities over an impending medical oxygen shortage in the state.
RS Sachdeva, managing director of Hi-tech Industries, the largest supplier of medical oxygen to government hospitals, besides industry grade oxygen, in the state, said there is a problem in supply of liquid oxygen. “There is an alarming increase in cases in some states, and our supply was diverted there. We didn’t get supply from Uttarakhand in last 3 days and the Panipat plant also reduced our supply. We got supply of 800 MTs in March, but didn’t receiv even half of that this month.”
The state has pressed into service the industries department to coordinate with suppliers. “As hospitals in the state are facing shortage of medical grade oxygen, you are requested to coordinate with the health authorities and help the district administration, director-cum-secretary, Sibin C wrote to general managers, district industries centres. The future demand for oxygen is likely to increase in view of the surge in cases in recent weeks.
Tanu Kashyap, managing director, Punjab Health System Corporation said the Centre has allocated quota of 126 MTs liquid oxygen to Punjab daily, but plans to reduce it to 82 MT from next week. “We have requested them to review the decision. We are expecting the requirement to increase to 120 MT daily by next week,” she said.
Dr KK Talwar, head of the state’s Covid expert task force, said, “The only worry is a situation like Delhi where cases shot up sharply. The situation was more or less stabilised in Punjab for 3 weeks but there was some spike in new infections 2-3 days.”