Panaji: The three-member committee formed to probe oxygen shortage during COVID crisis has highlighted lack of health information technology and data inter-operability available with the state’s premier hospital as a setback for the committee in its research to segregate the number of patients on different kinds of oxygen therapy required in treating COVID patients.
The task-force report on GMC further states that there is a gross discrepancy in the actual oxygen use claimed and the calculation of consumption using bed capacity.
It further says that the discrepancy in data is because of “a poor understanding of demand calculation.”
The committee, in its report, faulted the GMC for using an improper methodology to assess oxygen demand which was done based on ‘crude estimation’ and ‘real-life experiences’ and not applying scientific or official method.
As per the audit report prepared by IIT director Dr BK Mishra, former GMC dean Dr VN Jindal and revenue secretary Sanjay Kumar, during the second wave of COVID, the oxygen demand shot up with the rise in active COVID cases and instead of writing to its supplier to increase its production, the GMC management without applying mind asked GSIDC to check the oxygen supply line for any leakages.
The audit report has further said that the GMC only waited in hope that the company will provide oxygen cylinders as required but the company suddenly stopped its supply to GMC without any communication after the demand rose, and catered to other public hospitals.
The committee has brought to light “single firm” monopoly on supply of oxygen with no alternative or backup arrangements made by GMC in case of any failure by M/s Scoop Industries Pvt Ltd which was awarded contract of ten years and extended its reach to supply oxygen in all government hospitals.
In order to assess the requirement of oxygen, the committee needed the data on the number of patients admitted for COVID but unfortunately GMC didn’t have any Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) software to manage their data related to hospital inventory and maintain patient records efficiently.
The task-force has recommended use of bio-medical engineers or suitable experts for managing the 24×7 availability of oxygen and other gases. It has also suggested implementation of Hospital Management Information System for demand projection on all medical supplies.
With no data available to assess oxygen demand, the committee relied on supply data of oxygen and measured the number of trolleys supplied before and after COVID, indicating a remarkable increase in demand of oxygen.
The task-force found that the GMC did not implement the Health Ministry’s guideline on rationale use of oxygen issued in April 2021 to calculate the expected oxygen demand and instead projected its demand based on assumed consumption of 2.5 cylinder used per day on each patient and similarly the same assumption was used on demand of oxygen trolleys which was based on previous day usage.
To better understand the demand and supply trend of oxygen, the committee also visited the plant of sole oxygen supplier for the GMC M/s Scoop Industries at Corlim industrial estate and found pressure swing absorption based oxygen bottling plant could produce 24 trolleys per day and liquid medical oxygen tank based plant produce only 36 trolleys/day at its highest peak.
However as per the agreement with GMC, the company was supposed to supply 1,500 trolleys in a year but it falsely claimed that it produces 2,500 cylinders/day while investigation revealed the filling never exceeded 900 cylinders a day.
The audit report has further said that Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) based oxygen supply system of GMC for COVID ward was superior and was efficient to handle large spike of oxygen demand but absence of LMO tanks at the hospital premises led to substantial loss of oxygen during the process of conversion of LMO into gases at the company plant and then transfer to cylinders.
Also the hospital did not have alarm system at manifold room where oxygen supply lines are converging to alert in case of drop in pressure of oxygen. The other place of worry was the time taken for tractors carrying oxygen cylinders to reach the GMC premises and the narrow approach road to the manifold room.
‘Nothing unusual about COVID deaths data’
Panaji: The three-member committee constituted by the state government to probe the alleged oxygen supply issues and related deaths at Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) has put the curiosity of Goans to rest over the large number of COVID-19 deaths that happened between 2 am and 6 am from May 11 to May 13 due to shortage of oxygen as the committee did not find anything unusual.
The committee members based their reasoning on a observation that if there were large number of deaths from May 11 to May 13 then the ratio between the number of deaths to active total cases should have shown a spike but instead the ratio between these two for whole state was nearly the same since April 18 and also spikes were even more when oxygen supply system was installed at GMC.
The ratio of COVID deaths to the admitted patients in the South district hospital was quite similar to GMC for the same period, it said after analysing the ratio of COVID deaths and active cases between GMC and South district hospital between April 2 and May 22, 2021.
AAP wants report on COVID deaths made public
Panaji: Stating that the report by a three-member committee headed by IIT Goa director B K Mishra has made it clear that the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) authorities failed to raise the issue of oxygen shortage at a timely manner and even ignored Goa Association Resident Doctors’ (GARD)’s warnings on the same, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has said that due to this negligence, many citizens lost their lives to COVID-19 during the dark hours between 2 am to 4 am. AAP further demanded that the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant make the three-member committee report public.
AAP further said that GARD in May 2020 had written a letter to the GMC dean informing about the shortage of oxygen.