Noida sends IAF aircraft, tankers to procure O2
NOIDA/GHAZIABAD: An Indian Air Force aircraft flew 250 oxygen cylinders from Chennai on Tuesday night, on request from the Gautam Budh Nagar administration that urgently needed it.
“A request to the state government for an aircraft was approved within minutes. The aircraft landed at Ghaziabad’s Hindon Air Base. We hope we will be able to manage SOS calls from hospitals in the district,” said Rajeev Rai, sub-divisional magistrate, GB Nagar.
But it’ll take some time before the D-type (46.7 litres) cylinders can be put to use. The Confederation of Real Estate Developers’ Associations of India (Credai), which bought the cylinders under corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme, will refill and deliver them only by Thursday.
As per Dr Shweta, in-charge of oxygen/medicine availability in the district, the oxygen demand was 80 metric tonnes (MT) daily. “We barely have 10MT. The district hospital in Sector 30 alone uses up 500-600 cylinders in a day,” she said.
District magistrate Suhas LY said that the admin is also getting Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) from Ranchi. “Two tankers with a capacity of 35 metric tonne (MT) are being flown to Ranchi where they will be filled, before driving back to GB Nagar this week,” he said. He said they were going to procure of 100-200 oxygen concentrators from private firms through CSR.
The official dashboard said the district has 1,829 oxygen beds, all of which were occupied as of Wednesday evening.
“With the added supply, we can either increase beds or meet the existing demand. This decision will be taken later but as of now, our aim is to provide oxygen to hospitals that are running low on supply,” he said.
Credai said the cylinders will be distributed. “Some will be deployed in hospitals, and also local Covid facilities. Some will be used to run an oxygen cylinder bank” said Pankaj Bajaj, president, Credai-ncr.
Ghaziabad aims to add 70-80 more O2 beds
In Ghaziabad, the admin is in the process of procuring cylinders, concentrators and issuing orders for construction of oxygen plants in hospitals. Under BHEL’S CSR initiative, an oxygen plant is being constructed at the MMG District Hospital while orders for two more plants have been placed with other PSUS under their CSR initiative.
Senthil Pandian C, Ghaziabad’s nodal officer for Covid-19 preparedness, said the admin had requested all private hospitals to install their own oxygen plants, if possible. He said two private hospitals had informed them that they are doing this.
“The district needs 64 MT oxygen and we currently have supply of 46 MT only. We are getting three more plants constructed for government hospitals and are in talks with firm for installation of four more oxygen plants under CSR initiatives. In addition to this, two are being constructed at private hospitals,” he said.
Ghaziabad has also sourced 2,000 empty cylinders for government hospitals. The admin now has a total of 5,000 cylinders in rotation. “Apart from this, the authority has procured 40 oxygen concentrators while the admin has procured 100. Some of these will be provided to residential bodies. Most will be used to add 70-80 more beds as one machine can be used for two beds,” he said.
Concentrators coming in the district will be provided to ESI hospitals in Modinagar and Sahibabad where the additional oxygen beds will be set up. With this, Pandian said admin hopes to increase supply in the district by at least 5 MT, which is still short of the 15 MT it needs.
Ghaziabad currently has 2774 oxygen beds and 747 ICU beds.