Hike oxygen quota to 35 MT: Chandigarh Administration

Dushyant Singh Pundir

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 6

To meet the shortage of medical oxygen, the UT Administration has requested the Centre to enhance its quota by 15 MT.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has fixed the daily quota of 20 MT of medical oxygen for the UT from M/s INOX at Barotiwala in Solan district. In view of a surge in Covid cases, the UT Administration has written to the Central Government to enhance the UT quota of medical oxygen from 20 MT to 35 MT.

The medical oxygen is being utilised for Government Multi-Specialty Hospital (GMSH-16), the Government Medical College and Hospital (GMCH-32) and the Covid Hospital, Sector 48. Further, the private health care institutions also require medical oxygen and are mostly depended on medical oxygen in cylinders. After meeting the daily requirement of the three hospitals, the remaining medical oxygen, out of the 20 MT quota, is being provided to three approved private vendors for refilling medical oxygen cylinders to cater to the need of the government as well as private health care institutions in the city.

As more patients were getting critical, the daily requirement of medical oxygen in the city increased to nearly 40 MT, said an official.

He said they were getting nearly 12 MT from three oxygen plants recently set up in the government hospitals. Moreover, NGOs and other organisations setting up mini Covid care centres also need medical oxygen.

To ensure that the 20MT quota of oxygen is regularly supplied by M/s INOX to the three government hospitals and also to each of the three private refilling vendors, the UT Administration has stationed YP Batra, SDE (PH), and Ashok Singla, AE (PH), Chandigarh Housing Board, at Barotiwala (Baddi), HP, for better coordination with the supplier.

Meanwhile, on the request of the UT Health Department, the Chandigarh Director General of Police (DGP) has provided police escort facility to tankers carrying liquid medical oxygen from the INOX Barotiwala (Baddi) plant to the city. The Chandigarh Police have deployed DSP Dalip Ratan as nodal officer for the purpose.

Yesterday, the UT Health Department had written to UT DGP, stating that the nodal officer for oxygen supplies in UT, Yashpal Garg, has highlighted the need to provide police escort to tankers carrying liquid medical oxygen from Baddi plant to various destinations in Chandigarh to reduce the travel time and avoid untoward incidents.

Meanwhile, Jagjit Singh, Controller, Printing and Stationery, UT, has been assigned the charge of coordinating with all private hospitals located in the city regarding their availability of beds and supply of oxygen to Covid patients.

Garg said to facilitate proper coordination in refilling medical oxygen cylinders of the health care institutions, both government and private, nodal persons/officers for each hospital had been deputed.

“The Administration will welcome if the Army authorities give some manpower to help us in government hospitals as they have done for Patiala,” said Manoj Parida, UT Adviser.

Backup plan

As a preventive measure, Yashpal Garg, nodal officer for managing medical oxygen supply in the UT, has asked Sorabh Kumar Arora, PCS officer, with the assistance of Dr Manjit Singh, medical officer, to prepare a backup plan to get some supply of medical oxygen from Punjab and Haryana to handle any crisis at the eleventh hour. The authorities of other states may be assured that in such a situation, the oxygen provided by them will be replenished from the next supply of medical oxygen under the UT quota.

Chandigarh sees 9 deaths, 759 cases

Chandigarh: The UT on Thursday reported 759 fresh cases of coronavirus, taking the active caseload to 8,420. The UT also witnessed nine deaths due to Covid. The city toll now stands at 541. A total of 693 patients recovered from the disease in the past 24 hours. TNS