A devastating outbreak of coronavirus infections has exposed India’s deteriorating fitness infrastructure and deep oxygen scarcity, a key remedy for critically ill Covid-19 patients.
The AFP examines this scarcity:
– Why is oxygen vital? –
Oxygen treatment is for patients with severe hypoxemia with Covid-19, when blood oxygen levels are too low.
“Some clinical studies show that up to a quarter of hospitalized patients (Covid-19) require oxygen treatment and up to two-thirds of those in intensive care units,” network fitness specialist Rajib Dasgupta told AFP.
“That’s why it’s imperative to repair oxygen systems in hospitals because it’s a disease that basically affects the lungs. “
Experts have long sounded alarm about medical oxygen shortages in India and other poor countries to treat pneumonia, the world’s largest cause of preventable infectious death in children under the age of five.
But the government has not invested enough for years in such infrastructure, according to experts.
– Does India produce oxygen? –
The answer: yes.
Experts say the vast country of 1. 3 billion people produces enough oxygen, just over 7,000 tons a day, most of which are intended for commercial use, but can be misused for medical purposes.
Bottlenecks are in shipping and storage.
Liquid oxygen at very low temperatures must be transported in cryogenic tanks to distributors, which will then convert it into fuel to fill the bottles.
But India lacks cryogenic tankers.
And those special tankers, when full, will have to be transported by road and not by air for protection reasons.
Most oxygen manufacturers are located in east India, while demand expansion has occurred in cities that add Mumbai’s monetary center to the west and the capital Delhi to the north.
“The chain of sources wants to change to move medical oxygen from some regions that have excess materials to spaces that want more sources,” Siddharth Jain, one of India’s largest medical oxygen providers, Inox Air Products, told AFP.
Meanwhile, many hospitals do not have oxygen plants in place due to poor infrastructure, lack of experience and high costs.
Late last year, India submitted tenders for on-site oxygen plants for hospitals, but plans were never implemented, the media reports.
– What do we do? –
The government imports cell oxygen tankers and plants, builds more than 500 new factories and buys oxygen concentrators.
The government has ordered industries to use liquid oxygen.
Oxygen is being supplied to the most affected spaces through special rail services.
The army has also mobilized for the shipment of oil tankers and others on domestic territory and from foreign sources.
Emergency medical services, which add liquid oxygen, cryogenic tankers, concentrators and enthusiasts, are moving from other countries as a component of a massive aid effort.
– What’s on the floor? –
Oxygen shortages continue to hit spaces hard despite measures to improve supply, shipping and storage.
There have been reports of hospitals asking patients to obtain their own bottles and others die even after being admitted due to lack of oxygen.
Social media platforms have been filled with posts from desperate families for bottles and reloads.
At the same time, there is a developing black market for bottles and hubs that sell well above their same old retail prices.
Scarcity has provoked outrage and frustration in Delhi.
“The government planned on time,” commercial director Prabhat Kumar told AFP.
“If I had been prepared, we have to suffer like this from beds and oxygen. “