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‘Patients moved out of 6 Mumbai hospitals last week due to tech fault, not O2 shortage’
eeshanpriya@htlive
eeshanpriya@htlive.com
Mumbai Additional municipal commissioner Suresh Kakani on Monday said that the patients moved out of six civic hospitals last week was not on account of oxygen shortage but due to a “technical fault”, even as officials of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) confirmed that the civic body will hire another oxygen supplier by the middle of the week to ensure a steady supply of liquid medical oxygen (LMO), needed to treat critical patients of the coronavirus (Covid-19) disease.
The city, which had 43 ICU beds (out of 2762) and 20 ventilator beds (out of 1410) as of Monday night, has seen shortage of oxygen supply in many private and public hospitals. On April 17, the civic body had to shift 168 patients from six hospitals to jumbo Covid facilities and Rajwadi hospital, after the oxygen supply in these suburban hospitals ran out.
Mumbai’s daily demand of 235MT oxygen is currently being met by two vendors who supply to the BMC. A third will be added by Wednesday to ensure that the supply does not fall short. “The problem we had three days ago was because of non-refilling of the existing cylinders on time. We have seen that the cylinder-based system is not completely workable,” Kakani said. He added that the problem did not arise due to a shortage of oxygen in the city.
“There was a technical fault in the manufacturing plant [oxygen suppliers] due to which we were on short supply of oxygen,” Kakani said.
Since the cases began rising in the city since mid-February, oxygen demand has increased by about 20%, official figures show.
BMC uses oxygen that is available in cylinders which are re-filled from mega plants (cylinder-based system). Some facilities also use the oxygen directly from mega plants, such as the one at Seven Hills hospital, which the manufacturers fill.
BMC is studying the cost implications of setting up an oxygen plant, as well as the availability of oxygen in the market versus demand to consider if it should set up its own treatment plant.
“Oxygen manufacturing requires a specific ecosystem. Its power requirement is tremendous, and it requires an industrial area. In Mumbai, finding such an area is not possible. We are still examining the possibility [of setting up BMC-owned oxygen manufacturing plants within hospital premises or in the city limits], and no decision has been taken in this regard yet,” Kakani said.
Private hospitals across the city are also facing a shortage of oxygen supply.
“Private hospitals have their own vendors in the market from whom they directly purchase oxygen for their patients. Due to the recent short supply of oxygen in the market in general, some private hospitals have approached the BMC and asked for oxygen. BMC has provided it,” an official from the civic health department said.
