Three more plants to boost medical oxygen availability in Andhra Pradesh

VIJAYAWADA: Even as several states, including Delhi, are flagging an imminent shortage of medical oxygen, Andhra Pradesh will give the crisis a skip, officials said. In fact, the supply of oxygen in the state, which gets its share from six locations already, is expected to exceed demand after three more PSA oxygen plants begin operations in another week’s time.  

After an abnormal increase in its demand during the first wave of Covid-19 last year, the state government ramped up the storage capacity of medical oxygen in almost all major hospitals to 4.51 lakh cubic metres. The number of beds equipped with oxygen supply were enhanced to 26,000. All these beds are connected to centralised oxygen tankers, even as oxygen cylinders are kept on standby.  

According to Ravishankar, director general of Drugs Control Administration, the state needed 300 metric tonnes of oxygen per day at the peak of the first wave. AP has been getting medical oxygen from distributors linked to RINL (Vizag), Bellary (Karnataka) and Chennai. A few hospitals, which have contractual agreements with distributing companies in Hyderabad and other places, continue to get their supply from those distributors. 

At present, 380 metric tonnes of medical oxygen is available with the distributors, and 10 vehicles of different tank capacities have left for Visakhapatnam for loading. Around 140 metric tonnes are expected to be supplied to different hospitals by the vehicles. Even with the rising Covid-19 caseload, the current demand for medical oxygen is less than the supply.It may be noted that the first wave resulted in the commencement of medical oxygen production at Vizag Steel Plant (RINL). 

Considering the high demand, the central government had decided to setup 200 PSA oxygen plants, out of which five were sanctioned to Andhra Pradesh. The plants were sanctioned to Kurnool Medical College, SVR Ruia in Tirupati, Andhra Medical College in Visakhapatnam, Guntur Medical College, and Rangaraya Medical College in Kakinada. The plants in Kurnool, Kakinada and Vizag have already received the machineries from the Centre.

A senior officer monitoring the medical infrastructure said the installation of these three plants is under the final phase. They are likely to become operational in another week’s time. To ensure there is no gap in the supply of oxygen to the hospitals, Drugs Control Administration, which manages the medical oxygen infrastructure, has reportedly submitted a proposal to the Centre for construction of another nine PSA oxygen plants for the hospitals, particularly in Rayalaseema region, with a bed strength of over 500.