The Centre has offered 1,000 Oxygen Concentrator Machines to Madhya Pradesh and the administration has supplied these machines to different districts facing covid19 outbreak.
Sucking air from the atmosphere directly, these machines could convert five litre oxygen per minute and could ensure oxygen supply to two patients simultaneously. The department of Health and Family Welfare has decided to offer minimum two machines and at most 20 machines per district. On Saturday, 400 of these machines were sent to districts and medical colleges which will be sent to hospitals according to need. The Health ministry has said that these machines could deal with emergencies.
Sensing a possible shortfall in medical oxygen supply in Madhya Pradesh, the Centre has offered 1,000 such machines to the state recently. The supplies were recently hit as neighbouring Maharashtra had stopped oxygen supplies to Madhya Pradesh.
Bhopal has received 3 machines, Indore 2, Jabalpur 9, Gwalior 2 and Ujjain 5.
Districts lagging in terms of medical facilities including– Chhatarpur has received 23 machines, Shahdol 20, Balaghat 18, Guna 17, Shivouri, Satna, Rajgarh and Narsinghpur have received 15 machines each.
Indore region which is the worst affected area in terms of covid19 outbreak has decided that from now on oxygen supply will only be done to hospitals which means local industrial units won’t be allowed to source oxygen supply.
Wth the implementation of unlock in phased manner, the industrial demand for oxygen has picked up significantly of late.
On Thursday, the Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan had asked the oxygen plants to manufacture oxygen in full capacity and sanctioned an oxygen plant from a private company in Hoshangabad’s Mohasa which will start producing 200 tonnes of oxygen within next six months.
In a tweet, Chouhan had said that Maharashtra used to supply only 20 tonnes of oxygen to Madhya Pradesh and the company which sourced supplies from Maharashtra will now be doing the same from Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. By September end, we will ensure oxygen supplies of 150 tonnes, Chouhan had said.
From a monthly demand of 40 tonnes in July, the demand surged to 90 tonnes in August and to 130 tonnes in September as covid19 patients have surged in numbers in last few months. The state government has urged state governments of Gujarat and Chhattisgarh to supply oxygen after Maharashtra has issued orders to only supply oxygen in the state amid massive surge in corona cases.
Chouhan has said that there is no shortage of oxygen in the state and the state government was making arrangements to keep the supplies intact.