Haven't got O2 as per pact, just one day's stock left: TN in HC

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu has just one day's liquid medical oxygen stock left, and the issue has reached a critical point in the state, officials told Madras high court on Thursday.


The state's health department brass told the court that while 25MT of oxygen is being diverted from Sriperumbudur to Andhra Pradesh or Telangana, the 40MT it was supposed to get in return from Palakkad in Kerala has not come.

"Officials say it is a critical situation and the reserves have been used up to the extent that there may be a further day's reserve," said the first bench, recording the state's precarious oxygen situation.

"The Union and the empowered committee should take immediate steps in such regard to ensure adequate supply of oxygen to Tamil Nadu to meet the needs. This must be ensured by tomorrow. The Sterlite unit is unlikely to produce oxygen till next week," the bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy said on Thursday.

During hearing, health department officials said a meeting was held on May 2 involving officials from Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Tamil Nadu, central government representatives and manufacturers, at which a consensus was arrived that 475MT of oxygen would be released to Tamil Nadu daily. The officials complained that notwithstanding the meeting, no allocation order had been issued for Tamil Nadu till date. As against the daily requirement of about 450MT per day, the Central allocation remained 280MT since last week.

As for availability of Remdesivir, officials told the court that at the behest of the DMK government set to assume charge on Friday, Remdesivir centres are being set up in other major cities, including Madurai and Coimbatore, for release of the drug directly to private hospitals or patients.

Till April, Tamil Nadu had been allocated 1.35 lakh units of Remdesivir against the order placed of 2.5 lakh units, they said, adding that about 24,000 units had been distributed from the Kilpauk Medical College centre upon documents being produced.