A crisis unfolded in the Post Graduate Institute of Medical College and Research (PGIMER) after the Punjab government denied permission to the institute to lift oxygen cylinders from Mandi, Gobindgarh from Friday onwards.
As per reports, vehicles carrying oxygen cylinders for the medical institute were stopped at Mandi Gobindgarh on Thursday evening after the state govt passed orders obstructing the supply of additional oxygen.
PGIMER which is an abode to many Covid-19 victims from across the country said it will face an acute oxygen shortage if the additional oxygen supply is not allowed to reach the institute.
The quota for liquid oxygen by PGIMER is fixed by the government at 20MT, but due to the heavy inflow of patients, the institute has been requiring above the fixed quota liquid oxygen.
Due to this increase in demand for oxygen, the institute resorted to procuring the additional supply of the gas from a private vendor at Mandi Gobindgarh. Till now, the institute was transporting 50-odd oxygen cylinders, each with a capacity of 7000 litres each, from Mandi Gobindgarh till the govt passed an order, reported Indian Express.
Deliberating on the issue, assistant Professor Dr. Pankaj Arora from the Department of Hospital Administration told Indian express that “Our vendor in Gobindgarh makes oxygen using atmospheric gases and then it is filled in cylinders. There are no directions by the government of India pertaining to this and oxygen made through air can’t be stopped at inter-state borders,” , who manages the oxygen supplies, said.
He also demanded that the hospital should not be denied oxygen citing that doctors were already struggling to manage the supply of oxygen from the backup bank of liquid oxygen a day after govt refused to release the oxygen supply from Mandi.
UT Adviser Manoj Parida also agreed that the supply of oxygen should not have been obstructed especially when the institute was treating Covid patients majority of whom were from Punjab.
Meanwhile, Fatehgarh Sahib Deputy commissioner Amrit Kaur Gill told Indian express that the supplier had given wrong information that cylinders were meant for delivery to Mohali. After finding out that the gas cylinders were to be sent to PGI, those were allowed to proceed.
Earlier, the Indian government had refused the request for private firms in Punjab to commercially import liquid medical oxygen from Pakistan to bridge the gap in supply and enable the creation of more health infrastructure to treat the rising number of Covid-19 patients.
According to the Punjab CM, the state’s allocation on paper for oxygen is 195 metric tonnes. Out of this, 105 MT comes from oxygen generating plants in Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. However, the actual supply is far below the confirmed allocation.
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