PATNA: At least 60 tonnes of liquid oxygen has been supplied to
Patna within three days in an attempt to address the acute shortage of medical oxygen in hospitals with exponential rise in
Covid-19 cases.
As per the sources, one tanker liquid oxygen reached Patna on Friday morning followed by two more by the Saturday morning.
One more tanker loaded with liquid oxygen reached Patna on Sunday morning. All these tankers are receiving the liquid oxygen consignment from two different industrial gas plants at Bokaro in Jharkhand.
As per the sources, at least two to three more tankers loaded with liquid oxygen are en-route Patna from Jharkhand which are expected to reach at different times between Sunday night to Monday morning.
These liquid oxygens are being supplied to three different oxygen gas manufacturing plants in Patna who are engaged in refilling cylinders and supplying them to hospitals.
It is the state industries department which is coordinating with the Patna district administration to meet the needs of liquid oxygen supply.
However,
Dr Ashok Sinha of a private hospital at Saguna mor in Patna said though the problem of acute crisis has been addressed but there is still shortage of oxygen for normal supply to medical institutions.
“Supply is yet to get streamlined. We are still not getting oxygen in normal quantities. Due to this situation, we are still forced to deny admission of patients,” he said.
Sinha said that the acute shortage of oxygen cropped on April 15 and remained till next day.
He said his hospital used to get 170 oxygen filled cylinders per day in normal condition but at present, they are somehow managing to procure 70 to 80 cylinders per day.
As per the official data shared by Patna district administration, 3900 oxygen filled cylinders were supplied out of the three gas plants in Patna in 12 hours on Friday and 3973 in the same time period on Saturday.
The oxygen gas manufacturing plants have been instructed to run round the clock in three shifts.
As per district administration’s assessment, at least 10000 oxygen filled cylinders are required by hospitals in Patna per day in the present scenario. Besides, Patna requires four tankers liquid oxygen per day for meeting needs.
Besides, bringing large consignment of liquid oxygen from manufacturing plants outside states, oxygen supply to industries out of the gas prepared by the three Patna plants has been limited only till 10% which was earlier as high as 80%.
Patna divisional commissioner
Sanjay Kumar Agarwal also had a meeting with DMs of Patna, Bhojpur, Rohtas, Buxar, Kaimur and Nalanda on Saturday for discussing the possibilities of rerouting surplus oxygen from other districts to Patna for fulfilling needs.