Aurangabad, May 23:
It appears that the proposal to establish an oxygen plant at Meltron Hospital was put on the back burner.
The number of COVID patients is declining in city and rural areas. This is a good sign, but the crisis of pandemic virus has not ended yet.
When a wave of the virus comes, the health machiner faces many problems. There is just a discussion about establishing an oxygen plant at Meltron Hospital for the past ten months.
In the beginning, it was decided that a liquid oxygen plant would be developed, while later, it was announced that a natural air plant would come up. But, in reality, no movement was seen.
There were 119 patients in the city and 293 patients were detected in rural areas on Saturday.
A total of 1,638 patients are undergoing treatment at Government and private hospitals in the city currently. Many of them need oxygen. All private hospital need 23.98 tonnes and Government hospitals 15.80 tonnes of oxygen daily. This means there is a need for 39 to 40 tonnes of oxygen in 24 hours. There is no shortage of oxygen today. There was a time the district’s requirement had reached up to 65 to 70 tonnes of oxygen daily. It's a question as to what the health machinery will do if need of a double quantity of oxygen surfaces.
The decision to develop an independent plant was taken so that government and private hospitals should remain dependent on anyone.
Meltron Hospital of Aurangabad Municipal Corporation has 350 beds capacity. The administration has declared that an arrangement of 1000 beds would be at COVID Care Centres. Unfortunately, its process was not completed.
Environmental Minister Aditya Thackeray had assured the AMC of starting two oxygen plants at Meltron Hospital. The process appears stuck in red tape. People have a question as to when the plants will come up here.
According to health department sources, the work of two plants will commence as soon as they receive orders from the State Government.
“It takes 12 to 15 days to establish the plant. The required construction work was already done for the plant,” the sources said.