Oxygen demand in Punjab falls 36% in 2 weeks

CHANDIGARH: After somehow managing to meet the medical oxygen requirement at the peak of the second Covid wave, Punjab has recorded a substantial drop in demand of 100 metric tonne (MT) in the span of two weeks, thanks to the lesser number of patients requiring oxygen support and optimum utilisation by cutting down on wastage.
The daily demand has come down by over 36% -- 274.4 MT to 174.8 MT – during the 14-day period between May17 and May 30. In an encouraging sign, about 100 MT of the demand is being met locally.
For the first time since the beginning of the pandemic, the number of patients requiring oxygen support crossed the 10,000 on May 7 and continued to hover around that mark for the next 10 days. The spike pushed the daily demand to 300 MT, forcing Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh to send frantic messages to the central government for more oxygen.
The number of patients requiring oxygen started to fall from May 18 and dropped below 5,000 on May 27, while 4,740 infected patients were on oxygen support on May 30.
IAS officer Rahul Tewari, who is heading the oxygen monitoring control room, maintained that timely corrective measures taken by the government helped in ensuring an uninterrupted supply of oxygen in required quantities and the state is comfortably placed at the moment. He said that guidelines framed by a team of experts helped in rationalising the usage and plugging sources of wastage.
There are as many as 10,273 oxygen beds in the state, of which 6,335 are in private and 3,938 in government-run facilities.
The expert group was constituted at the state level under Dr KK Talwar to guide hospitals and doctors on Covid treatment and proper utilisation of oxygen and drugs. The group framed guidelines on rationalised use of oxygen.
As per the guideline, in the case of moderate Covid patients, the oxygen flow rate has been fixed at 2-4 litres per minute by nasal prongs, 6-10 litres per minute by facemask and 10-15 litres per minute by non-rebreathing masks. For severe cases, the aim is to achieve oxygen saturation of 94% for which the oxygen consumption rates have been fixed at 10 litres per minute with invasive mechanical ventilation, 25-60 litres per minute with non-invasive ventilation.
The government has also set up an oxygen audit committee in all districts to sensitise doctors, staff, patients and to identify and plug sources of wastage and undertake zoning of wards as per oxygen requirement. Punjab imposed a ban on elective surgeries and allowed only emergency surgeries in hospitals to further cut demand.