India has been hit really hard in the second wave of COVID 19 with Oxygen crisis. The virus is giving a hard time to the citizens. Will the country survive or fall on the knees?
The Most Expensive Thing In Our Life Is Oxygen Crises Right Now!!
The second wave of Covid-19 has shown glaring flaws in the India’s health system as well as the government’s preparedness to deal with a crisis that had plenty of warning signs. Nowhere is this void more apparent than in hospitals across Delhi, Mumbai, and other major cities, where patients have been unable to obtain even the most essential medical oxygen.
In the absence of any oversight, patients in home isolation have been unable to obtain cylinders, and the cost of refilling a tank or renting an oxygen concentrator has skyrocketed.
The life struggle of many out there
When Vinod Naik complained of breathlessness on April 9, his family tried unsuccessfully to find him a hospital bed in Kandivali, Mumbai’s suburb. They were recommended by a doctor to obtain an oxygen cylinder for use at home. The quest led to a supplier who was willing to rent an oxygen concentrator for Rs 10,000, more than twice the going rate. The Naiks acted without hesitation. The patient, who was elderly, was rescued.
A fight for survival
In his cluttered store, ‘All India Healthcare Medical Equipment,’ in Jogeshwari, a Mumbai suburb, Afzal Shaikh is catching up on his sleep. There are cylinders, concentrators, BiPAPs, and ventilators all around him. Shaikh hasn’t had more than two hours of sleep in over a week, spending his time awake arranging medical equipment for Covid-19 patients. He has been known to run out at all hours of the night to repair an oxygen cylinder for a patient. Since it is Ramzan month, Shaikh says he only goes home once a day — for sehri.
A dark tunnel with no end
However, Ramnath Tupseinder’s tale ended differently 10 kilometres away, in a Dahisar slum. The 60-year-oxygen crises old’s saturation dropped to 89 that night. His son hurried to two government-run Covid centres, but there were no beds available. “He couldn’t afford a concentrator or a cylinder,” says Sandhya Fernandes, a social worker who claims she called every hospital in the area looking for a bed for Tupseinder. As a result, they had to rely on the minimal oxygen cylinder in a cardiac ambulance to keep him alive. Tupseinder died two hours later, gasping for air.
The growing cases in India are giving a tough time
India has reported close to 35,000 Covid deaths since the second wave started in early February, but the country has not kept track of Covid deaths caused by a lack of oxygen.
Officially, India’s daily oxygen crises output potential is 7,127 MT and its medical oxygen demand has risen by 76 per cent in 10 days — from 3,842 MT on April 12 to 6,785 MT on April 22. On paper, this leaves the country with a few hundred metric tonnes of spare capacity, but state after state has recorded severe shortages.
Inox Air Products, Linde India, Goyal M G Gases, National Oxygen Ltd, and Taiyo Nippon Sanso Corporation are among India’s major oxygen producers.
Many big brands helping the ones in need
According to an Inox official, the company meets roughly 60% of the country’s LMO demand, producing 2,000 MT per day and supplying 800 hospitals. The company has 550 transport tankers and 600 drivers who, according to the official, have been on the road 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
In large plants, cryogenic Oxygen crises distillation techniques are used to compress ambient air, feed it into distillation columns, and produce liquid oxygen. It has a purity of 99.5 percent. According to an industry expert, this method will take up to two and a half days for lakhs of litres.
The distributors compress liquid oxygen, feed it into cylinders, and transport it to its final destination: hospitals. Any of the inventory is sold to local vendors who supply home health care patients. According to officials, end-to-end transportation takes anywhere between five and ten hours while covering longer distances.
A hope at the end
India has 1,172 oxygen cryogenic tankers for road transport, according to government statistics. Tankers served their task admirably before the outbreak, but now they are scarce and take an excruciatingly long time to travel hundreds of kilometres. India is converting nitrogen and argon tankers into oxygen transport vehicles.
