Covid-19: Oxygen war room clocks 24 hours to meet soaring demand in Thiruvananthapuram

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Medical College Hospital (MCH) which carries the brunt of category C Covid-19 patients in the district required 426 litres of oxygen per hour in the past two days.
As per the estimates on demand, supply and consumption of oxygen in hospitals being monitored by the war room in the district, approximately 9,800 litres of oxygen was consumed by MCH in 23 hours between Saturday and Sunday. Such is the rate at which oxygen is needed in MCH and a few private hospitals where patients under critical care are being treated.
The 24-hour war room set up by the district administration is working non-stop to cater to the demand from the government and private hospitals. Nearly 400 cylinders of B (1,200 litres) and D (around 7,000 litres) types are being supplied to around 20 private hospitals daily. MCH alone gets a supply of 8.5kl of oxygen per day while private hospitals place demand for above 4kl oxygen per day.
“We can’t say that we are in a comfortable situation, but we are managing the current demand. We have effected various steps to procure, refill, supply and monitor the usage. Majority of the demand is from the MCH because the patient load is very high and many of them are in critical care. Besides, demand is also coming from private hospitals treating Category C patients,” said district development commissioner Vinay Goel.
The team at the war room collects information about availability of oxygen. It is collected and sent to agencies for conversion from industrial oxygen to medical use oxygen. This is filled and kept in the stock. Nodal officers with private hospitals update regularly on oxygen modules on Covid jagratha portal. All real-time data on present availability, demand and infrastructure is keyed in based on patient capacity. The team at the war room go through the demand and take steps to ensure the supply.
“As part of the oxygen audit we have also ensured that the technician who uses oxygen cylinders/manifold cylinders is trained and hands on. We have conducted an online training for the technicians. We have also formed a district-level team to make sure that no hospital uses more oxygen than that is actually required. Using the patient data, we can assess the need and random surprise checks are done to find out if the hospital uses it fairly and transparently. We are also maintaining a buffer stock in addition to all these measures” said Goel.
As many as 12 major private hospitals are also being monitored using executive magistrates.
Dr Ajesh, nodal officer of oxygen supply in the war room, said that multiple filling of cylinders is a huge challenge even while meeting the requirements.