AHMEDABAD: Just as the threat of the new Omicron variant of Covid looms ahead, civic officials in Ahmedabad are caught in a bind.
About three months ago, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) had dropped plans to set up major Covid care facilities, that had been announced and planned soon after the second wave of Covid cases, when the huge deficit in our health facilities was laid bare, and citizens were left scrambling for ambulances, ICU beds and oxygen cylinders.
A senior official in the estate department of the AMC told TOI that just two weeks after the second wave began showing a downward trend, the state government and Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) promised that 75 to 110 facilities, depending on requirements, including AMC’s community halls, private hotels and exhibition centres, would be converted into Covid care centres with oxygen facilities, to thwart a possible third wave. Some 75 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) oxygen plants of varying capacity were to be installed across the city and expressions of interest for these had been called. It now turns out that the plans were put in abeyance.
“We sincerely wish that a third wave does not hit us. There were plans to convert 75 facilities, including AMC-run community halls, exhibition centres and hotel rooms into oxygen facilities with adequate supply. All these plans have been put in abeyance,” said a senior AMC official in the estate department. Surveys of 110 facilities that were to be converted to Covid facilities were carried out.
On existing PSA plants, the official said: “As of now we are installing nine PSA plants of 500 litres per minute (LPM) capacity. Six 2,000 LPM plants are coming up at SVP Hospital, while four plants of 1,000 LPM are coming up at Shardaben and LG Hospitals and Samras hostel. “One PSA plant each is beings set up at VS and LG Hospitals,” the AMC official said.
There are no public facilities that are being converted to special Covid care centres, the AMC official said.
