‘Planning ahead for oxygen contingencies is crucial’
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Almost a yr after putting in an oxygen generator plant on its new campus at Kannigapuram in Ranipet district, the Christian Medical College (CMC), Vellore, is trying to arrange two extra vegetation on its predominant campus.
While the plant enabled the hospital to generate its personal oxygen provide on website, the excessive demand for oxygen and uncertainty in provides has made it vital to plan ahead for oxygen contingencies throughout pandemics, in response to J.V. Peter, director of CMC.
“We started to plan to create a backup a year ago. Pre-COVID, our daily requirement was 2,500 to 3,000 cubic metres of oxygen. We reached a maximum consumption of 5,000 cubic metres per day in the first wave. Now, in the second wave, despite using alternative sources of oxygen, since the patients are more sick and most of them require high dose oxygen therapy, the consumption of liquid medical oxygen is approaching 7,000 cubic metres per day,” he stated.
The oxygen generator plant at Kannigapuram has a capability to generate 1,000 to 1,200 cubic metres of oxygen per day, which might profit 100 to 120 sufferers in stage 1 and a couple of wards. In addition, an oxygen plant with a capability of 600 cubic metres was put in on the primary city campus. “This was to ensure that we do not have over-dependency on liquid oxygen. We have ordered two more oxygen generator plants, each of 500 to 600 cubic metres capacity for the main campus. It is awaited due to a huge demand in the country at this time,” Dr. Peter added.
The hospital has 4 sources of oxygen provide to the wards. “At the highest level, we have liquid oxygen for critically ill patients on ventilators. We have an oxygen manifold system for wards as a backup if liquid oxygen supply fails. This will last only around two hours. Third, we have the oxygen generation plants, and most recently, we acquired 100 bedside portable oxygen concentrators,” he stated.
These bedside concentrators may every present 5 to 10 litres of oxygen per minute. “All these measures have enabled CMC to manage over 1,000 patients with COVID-19, including 250 critically ill patients and the remaining majority needing oxygen with less than 75% of the projected requirements for liquid oxygen,” he identified.
Despite a number of measures that had been undertaken to mitigate threat, the uncertainty of an assured and regular provide of liquid oxygen through the second wave of the pandemic was making the state of affairs weak, he stated.
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