State sets up war room to ensure oxygen supply to hospitals

Picture used for representational purpose only

Bengaluru: Due to the second wave of the pandemic and a shortage of beds and drugs, on Sunday, Karnataka set up a war room to ensure the supply of medical oxygen to hospitals for treating Covid-19 patients.

Health minister K Sudhakar said, “A dedicated war room has been set up at the office of the state Drug Controller here to facilitate the availability of medical oxygen in both state-run and private hospitals.”

The war room comes as a result of a reported shortage of oxygen in hospitals in the capital which witnessed 11,404 new cases on Saturday and 87,724 active cases.

On Friday, Karnataka recorded 17,489 positive cases which have taken the state’s tally to 11,41,998 including, 1,19,160 active cases.

On Saturday, out of 80 deaths, 43 were from Bengaluru which has taken the state’s toll to 13,270 and the city’s toll to 5,063.

Out of the 589 Covid patients in ICUs, 124 are in Bengaluru hospitals, followed by 109 in Kalaburagi, 45 in Kolar, 40 in Mysuru, 29 in Dharwad, 24 in Bidar, and 23 each in Devangere and Hassan.

Sudhakar said, “We will supply jumbo cylinders to private hospitals, which do not have liquid oxygen tanks, from state-run hospitals to overcome the shortage and meet the demand.”

The demand for gas has been increasing even though around 800 tonnes of oxygen is produced by four bottling plants across the state.

Sudhakar stated, “We have urged the Centre to supply 7,500 jumbo oxygen cylinders to meet the demand in the state, as cases continue to spike daily.”

The war room was set up after private hospitals and Private Hospitals and Nursing Homes (PHANA) wrote to Sudhakar about the shortage of oxygen in their hospitals and nursing homes.

Srinivas Chirikuri, chief executive of Prakriya Hospital said, “Many private hospitals which have been ordered to reserve 50% of their beds for Covid patients are facing oxygen shortage and if the situation persists, they will be out of stock soon.”

There is an increased demand for oxygen supply as more patients are going to hospitals due to low oxygen saturation.

MS Sreedhara, palaeontologist and paediatrician of Rainbow Children’s Hospital said, “As the number of patients infected with coronavirus rises, so will the need for ICU beds. There is a scarcity of ICU beds and ICU resources like oxygen and ICU trained nurses.