Oxygen deficit adds up to big hospitals' woes

Pune: The city's healthcare infrastructure has come under unprecedented stress after small Covid-19 hospitals, mainly working on the fringes, have started shifting their admitted patients and referring others to big health hubs for want of uninterrupted supply of liquid medical oxygen.
The situation arose after the daily requirement of the district's Covid health units has shot up to 386 metric tonnes as against the capacity of 350 tonnes.
Physician Aniket Joshi, who is attached with 10 small and medium-sized Covid-109 hospitals in the city, said, "Small and medium-sized hospitals are primarily dependent on the supply of jumbo cylinders from distributors on a regular basis. In the current situation, they are finding it extremely difficult to admit new patients needing oxygen support. Most of them have stopped new admissions and started referring such patients to big hospitals with oxygen plants on-premises."
“I had to shift 15 patients, including 10 who were on ventilator support, to Columbia Asia hospital and Pune Municipal Corporation's Jumbo facility on Tuesday. I swung into action after my jumbo cylinder distributor informed me early in the day that he would be able to give just 30 cylinders as against my need of 70,” said senior surgeon Shrihari Dhorepatil, owner and medical director of the Shree hospital, a 60-bed Covid facility, in Kharadi.”
“The authorities facilitated shifting some of our ICU patients to the Jumbo facility. They also made provision of jumbo cylinders for remaining patients. I approached them as I realized that borrowing cylinders from known sources alone won’t help the patients,” he said.