Glitches in distribution, storage hit oxygen supply in Vizag

A pointy rise in the variety of lively COVID-19 instances in town has turned the highlight on the provision of medical oxygen at hospitals.

While there is no such thing as a scarcity of liquid medical oxygen, some points with the distribution course of and lack of empty oxygen cylinders is alleged to be the explanation behind the non-availability of beds with oxygen supply at hospitals.

Some non-public hospitals say they’re dealing with issues in the procurement of oxygen, which is partly as a result of large surge in sufferers requiring oxygen beds and the shares, accessible with them, operating out often.

“A private notified hospital, which has a sanctioned oxygen bed strength of 100, is being forced to admit nearly double that number of patients in view of the huge caseload. The hospital procures 100 cylinders and at the rate of consuming 10 cylinders an hour, their supply would run out in 10 hours. This is forcing some of the private notified hospitals to turn away patients requiring oxygen support,” sources mentioned.

Ventilator beds allotted for COVID-19 sufferers, and the ICUs, are additionally full more often than not. The availability of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) for Visakhapatnam district, from what’s produced at Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) and at a plant at Pharma City close to Parawada, is round 160 metric tonnes, based on conservative estimates.

“Time plays a key factor in the distribution network. Timely delivery is essential to keep circulation of oxygen running. But in the present condition, the supply is delayed by 10 to 12 hours and that is upsetting flow of oxygen to the beds. We have limited storage capacity and it can be run round-the-clock if we have timely supply,” mentioned the managing director of a non-public hospital.

The every day requirement of medical oxygen in town is about 50 tonnes, however the manufacturing is a number of occasions larger than the demand, based on official sources. The whole sanctioned oxygen beds in the district are: 456 in six ‘A’ class hospitals and 917 in 33 ‘B’ class hospitals; there are 175 ICU beds in the A- class hospitals and 384 ICU beds in B-category hospitals. There are 36 ventilators on the A-category hospitals and 137 ventilators in the B-category hospitals.

This aside, there are oxygen beds at authorities COVID hospitals like Visakha Institute of Medical Sciences (VIMS), King George Hospital (KGH) and the Government Hospital for Chest and Communicable Diseases (GHCCD).

Meanwhile, it’s learnt that although a provision has been made for establishing of a complete of 180 oxygen beds at Government ENT Hospital, Regional Eye Hospital and Rani Chandramani Devi (RCD) Hospital, they may not be operationalised up to now, reportedly as a consequence of non-availability of oxygen cylinders.