Despite the claims by the government about optimal availability, there are still concerns among private hospitals, NGOs and other groups about oxygen scarcity in Belagavi district.
As of Tuesday, May 18, 2021, around 4 kilo litres of liquid oxygen per day have been provided to around 2,614 COVID patients in the district. However, some doctors estimate that the demand is around twice that quantity. Some doctors like Ashok Patil , director of Belgaum hospital and Amit Bhate, director of Jeevan Rekha hospital, said due to the government’s move for centralised oxygen supply, oxygen was not available in the open market.
This was seriously affecting their operations and could force them to close down hospitals, they said.
NGOs like Al Iqra and Mahesh Foundation who were supplying cylinders to home isolated patients, complain that the government has stopped allocating them cylinders. “Our work has been severely hit due to this abrupt decision,’’ said Mudassar Ternikar, member of a NGO that is engaged in COVID relief work.
However, officials maintain that the scarcity was temporary and was an effect of the rationing of cylinders.
“We are trying to streamline the supply of oxygen in the district. We have succeeded to a significant extent. We have supply from JSW Ballari and other sources. We also have local production. We shall be able to tide over the scarcity and ensure that it will reach all patients who need it, deputy commissioner M.G. Hiremath said. “The district is also getting 25 tonnes of oxygen from Riyadh and other middle east countries, that will help us immensely,” he said.
“The district administration is working with the Indian Medical Association to regulate cylinder supply. We are setting up an oxygen care centre at the Youth hostel, in association with the IMA. They will have 25 oxygen concentrators donated by Hindalco. We also plan to run four oxygen buses around town, with upto 10 cylinders in each bus. They will be stationed in select areas where home isolated patients can come and inhale for 2-3 hours,” the DC said.
“The state government ordered withdrawal of cylinders from NGOs as it was unmonitored. Anyway, such cylinders were around one percent of the total cylinders on track,” said Raghuram Nidavanda, assistant drug controller, who is in charge of logistics of drugs and oxygen. The reasons behind this are that those who need oxygen should shift to hospitals and that it is dangerous to keep an oxygen cylinder at home. It is an offence to hoard oxygen cylinders at home, by unregistered persons, he explained.
Local production of oxygen in Belagavi district is around 700 litres per day and each hospital gets an average of 40 cylinders per day. These are released in units of 20 per shift of 12 hours. Hospitals are supposed to use cylinders judiciously and seek refills by returning empty cylinders.
Officers observe that some local refill plants suffered from scarcity of liquid oxygen. Local refillers like Venkatesh Patil, could not meet their targets of around 400 cylinders per day. However, additional allotment of 13 kilo litres of oxygen released on Tuesday would help the refill units, Mr. Nidavanda said. Mr Patil’s has upgraded its capacity and installed modern machines to refill Dura cylinders, that have capacity to carry 20 times more oxygen than jumbo cylinders. This helps us cover larger hospitals with fewer cylinders,’’ the ADC said.
