The surge in demand for medical oxygen amid the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed dependency of State-run hospitals on a few private manufacturing units for procuring oxygen cylinders for needy patients.
The pandemic has also brought into sharp focus the urgent need to build a self-reliant public healthcare infrastructure to effectively tackle future disease outbreaks and also the untapped potential of the oxygen manufacturing sector for prospective entrepreneurs.
In a proactive step in this direction, the district administration has hastened the process of setting up a 13 KL liquid oxygen storage plant on the premises of the District Headquarters Hospital here under the aegis of the TSMSIDC. Following the intervention of Collector R.V. Karnan, work on the plant has gained pace in the last fortnight, hospital sources said. Once the plant is opened, it would help maintain a reserve stock of oxygen cylinders for one week and ensure oxygen supply in a hassle-free and cost-effective manner, sources added.
The requirement of oxygen cylinders in the government and private hospitals across the old undivided Khammam district is estimated to be around 600 to 650 a day, sources said. There are four distributors who are catering to the requirements of the hospitals from two filling stations.
Last month, when the COVID-19 cases surged suddenly, the demand for oxygen cylinders rose sharply due to a gap in demand and supply, pushing up the cost of cylinders, sources added. However, official sources attributed the slight increase in price of oxygen cylinders to the additional cost of transportation of the cylinders from a plant in Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
When contacted, B Srinivas Rao, Resident Medical Officer of District Headquarters Hospital, Khammam, told The Hindu that adequate stock of oxygen cylinders are being maintained to administer oxygen to the needy patients. “The requirement of oxygen cylinders ranged between 20 to 30 a day prior to COVID-19 outbreak. The hospital has a total of 200 beds for COVID-19 patients and as such, we are maintaining the required number of oxygen cylinders one each per bed,” he said, adding that the consumption of oxygen cylinders peaked last month. The number of COVID in-patients in the hospital today is around 80, he pointed out.
Works on the liquid oxygen storage tank and the supply pipeline system have reached the final phase.
Drug Inspector of Khammam, G. Surendra said there are sufficient stocks of 3,000 oxygen cylinders of 7 cubic metres (30 tonnes) each are available with distributors in the district. “We are monitoring the supply situation on a daily basis,” he said.