Concern over oxygen scarcity in Belagavi

Despite the claims by the federal government about optimum availability, there are nonetheless issues amongst personal hospitals, NGOs and different teams about oxygen scarcity in Belagavi district.

As of Tuesday, May 18, 2021, round 4 kilo litres of liquid oxygen per day have been offered to round 2,614 COVID sufferers in the district. However, some docs estimate that the demand is round twice that amount. Some docs like Ashok Patil , director of Belgaum hospital and Amit Bhate, director of Jeevan Rekha hospital, mentioned because of the authorities’s transfer for centralised oxygen provide, oxygen was not obtainable in the open market.

This was significantly affecting their operations and will pressure them to shut down hospitals, they mentioned.

NGOs like Al Iqra and Mahesh Foundation who had been supplying cylinders to residence remoted sufferers, complain that the federal 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 mentioned.

“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 mentioned.

“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,” mentioned Raghuram Nidavanda, assistant drug controller, who’s in cost of logistics of medication and oxygen. The causes behind this are that those that want oxygen ought to shift to hospitals and that it’s harmful to maintain an oxygen cylinder at residence. It is an offence to hoard oxygen cylinders at residence, by unregistered individuals, he defined.

Local manufacturing of oxygen in Belagavi district is round 700 litres per day and every hospital will get a mean of 40 cylinders per day. These are launched in models of 20 per shift of 12 hours. Hospitals are supposed to make use of cylinders judiciously and search refills by returning empty cylinders.

Officers observe that some native refill crops suffered from scarcity of liquid oxygen. Local refillers like Venkatesh Patil, couldn’t meet their targets of round 400 cylinders per day. However, further allotment of 13 kilo litres of oxygen launched on Tuesday would assist the refill models, Mr. Nidavanda mentioned. Mr Patil’s has upgraded its capability and put in trendy machines to refill Dura cylinders, which have capability to hold 20 instances extra oxygen than jumbo cylinders. This helps us cowl bigger hospitals with fewer cylinders,’’ the ADC mentioned.