E-Paper
After Amritsar SOS, officials of 3 districts deliver oxygen overnight
Five metric tonnes of liquid oxygen despatched to Amritsar at 4am from Hoshiarpur with Jalandhar and Patiala officials pitching in
Responding swiftly to the oxygen SOS call by two Amritsar-based hospitals, the district authorities of Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur worked through Tuesday night and managed to ensure the timely delivery of five metric tonnes of liquid oxygen to health institutions in Amritsar early on Wednesday.
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On being informed about the shortage of oxygen at two hospitals, Amritsar additional deputy commissioner Dr Himanshu Aggarwal called up the Hoshiarpur district administration for the supply on the instructions of the oxygen control room in Chandigarh on Tuesday night. The absence of a technical expert who could perform decanting from tank to tanker (reverse operation) posed a challenge in oxygen supply to Amritsar, so senior officials in Chandigarh asked Jalandhar ADC (development) Vishesh Sarangal to find a technical expert.
Sarangal along with sub divisional magistrate Dr Jai Inder Singh and District Industries Centre general manager Deep Singh located Rashpal, a technical expert at Punjab Institute of Medical Sciences, Jalandhar, and a team contacted him at his house at 2.45am on Wednesday. He left to perform the crucial exercise at the Hoshiarpur oxygen plant, where he started decanting oxygen from tank to tanker and within an hour the liquid oxygen supply of five metric tonnes was despatched to Amritsar at 4am on Wednesday.
Sarangal acknowledged the help from the Jalandhar police commissionerate in locating the address of technical experts and added that Hoshiarpur DC Apneet Raiyait and Showkat Ahmad Parray, the Patiala-based IAS officer in-charge of oxygen monitoring and supply in Punjab, monitored the events and ensured smooth coordination until oxygen was despatched to Amritsar.
Six critical patients, four of them suffering from Covid-19, had died after the medical oxygen supply dried up at a private hospital in Amritsar on April 24.
