India News | Eastern Naval Command to Depute 4 Teams for Oxygen Audit in Govt, Teaching Hospitals in AP

Amaravati, May 8 (PTI): The Eastern Naval Command of the Indian Navy will depute four of its teams for conducting an oxygen audit in government and teaching hospitals in Andhra Pradesh.

The teams will inspect the oxygen supply infrastructure, pipelines and other equipment in government hospitals and suggest corrective measures, if any, according to Principal Secretary (Health) Anil Kumar Singhal.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday evening, Anil said the ENC has also agreed to ferry 25 cryogenic tankers from abroad to the state.

"We have invited bids for purchase of liquid medical oxygen from foreign countries.

As and when we find the sellers, the ENC will ship LMO to the state as well," Singhal said.

Principal Secretary (Transport) and Covid-19 Special Officer M T Krishna Babu held talks with Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief of ENC Ajendra Bahadur Singh in this regard.

The ENC has also agreed to make available 50 beds at its base hospital INS Kalinga for (civilian) COVID-19 patients.

Besides, it would create another temporary facility with 150 beds at Kancharapalem in Visakhapatnam for civilian patients, the Principal Secretary added.

The state government would provide doctors and other medical support staff at these facilities.

Singhal said the Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Limited, the corporate entity of Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, has already readied a 200-bed facility for treating coronavirus-infected persons.

"RINL has agreed to create a facility of a total 1,000 beds in a phased manner," he added.

RINL has so far supplied 3,214 tonnes of liquid medical oxygen to AP and another 264 tonnes to Karnataka and Maharashtra.

Singhal said the Centre increased oxygen allocation to AP from 480 to 590 tonnes, "but even that is insufficient."

The AP government requested the Centre that at least 1,000 tonnes of oxygen be supplied to the state, that too from nearby sources.

The Principal Secretary said they have requested the Department of Space to supply oxygen from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota to meet the medical requirements, if ISRO was not using it.

"We came to know that about 90-100 tonnes of oxygen is available at Sriharikota.If made available, that could be used to meet the requirements of patients in SPS Nellore district, (where the space centre is also located)," Singhal said.

On availability of beds for COVID-19 patients, the Principal Secretary said of the total 7,065 ICU beds (in both government and private hospitals), 6,300 were currently occupied.

Of the 23,525 beds with oxygen supply facility, 21,950 were filled.

Another 14,784 patients were lodged in Covid Care Centres, he said. PTI

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)