Bettiah hospital gasps for O2 as demand shoots up

BETTIAH: Within a week of claiming that the brand new oxygen generating plant has been pumped into in-house production, Bettiah’s Government Medical College is panting with inadequate supplies with the number of Covid patients rising.
“The demand (for oxygen) has shot up. We are augmenting our supplies from Harsiddhi and Gopalganj,” Hospital Superintendent Pramod K Tiwary said on Thursday even as kin of admitted Covid patients were horrified with hearsay reports of depleting oxygen stocks.
Lal Babu, attendant of a Covid patient Vijay Kumar told reporters early Thursday morning, “Last night, we panicked when a nurse said that the hospital’s oxygen supply was rapidly depleting. Another patient’s kin shared his fright on hearing that the hospital, with 107 Covid patients in the isolation ward, had just three hours of oxygen supply left."
With a large pile of empty oxygen cylinders lying without refill, a technician told reporters that the new plant is having hiccups in generating oxygen. Just a few days back, the hospital administration had claimed that the plant had been made operational and would help avert any crisis. While the technician felt the need for a dedicated power line to prevent voltage fluctuations, hospital manager Shanawaz felt the urgent need to augment transport with a dedicated fleet of vehicles to ferry oxygen from Harsiddhi and Gopaganj.
Officials, including the civil surgeon, hospital superintendent, the Bettiah SDM and senior deputy collector Madan Kumar went into a huddle on Thursday afternoon to overcome the looming crisis. “We already have in place a green corridor to maintain the oxygen supply. We are working overtime to prevent any crisis,” SDM Vidya Nand Paswan told this reporter.
While the SDM claimed that the plant would go on steam by Thursday night, hospital administration bemoaned the plant’s limited production capacity. “The OGP is fettered with teething problems as the required pressure is not being built up,” superintendent Tiwary said, adding that an engineer from the commissioning company has arrived to solve the problem. “On full steam, it can produce up to 40 cylinder fills,” he added.
A greenfield project, the Bettiah GMCH, it may be mentioned, is still not fully ready. When fully built and furnished, it will have 850 beds. “At present, we have a total of 450 beds and we are expanding the number of beds for Covid patients," he further said.
Asked about the wisdom of installing the oxygen plant with limited production capacity, he said the capacity was insufficient for the Covid crisis. The plant was installed by the Bihar Medical Supplies & Infrastructure Corporation, a State government enterprise.