As many as 38 Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) oxygen plants will be set up across the 24 districts of the State under PM Cares fund in a bid to ensure sufficient supply of Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) to patients in need of breathing support, health officials said on Tuesday.
“Each of the 24 districts will get at least one PSA plant under the PM Cares fund in our state. The Centre has issued a final list of 1215 PSA plants that will come up in different states and Jharkhand will get 38 of them,” said the nodal officer for Information, Education and Communication (IEC) wing of the health department, Dr. Siddharth Tripathi.
Several states, including Jharkhand, faced an acute crisis of LMO during the second wave of Covid-19, which wreaked havoc across India. Lack of logistics emerged as one of the greatest challenges for the country for movement of oxygen from one state to another, and the delay in the process led to several deaths, sources said. The PSA plants to come up in the state will ease the pressure of logistics in case of an emergency that may trigger an oxygen shortage, they added.
The Defense Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will ensure the site preparation and installation of at least 29 of the 38 PSA plants, while the Central Medical Services Society (CMSS) and HLL Infra Services Limited (HITES) will work for the site preparation and installation of four and five PSA plants respectively.
As per details shared by the Centre, at least three PSA plants each will be set up in Ranchi, East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Bokaro. Two each will come up in Dhanbad, Deoghar, Dumka, Giridih, Latehar and Hazaribag, while one PSA plant will be set up in each of the remaining 14 districts in the state.
This time around, the Centre has categorically mentioned in its communique to the State that the latter will have to appoint at least two technical persons for each PSA plant and one nodal officer for the each of the hospitals benefiting from them in a bid to avert technical glitches, which earlier marred the efforts of the Centre while providing free ventilators to states under the PM Cares fund. Several states, including Jharkhand, had complained about defunct ventilators and lack of assistance from the Centre in troubleshooting during the second wave of Covid-19 earlier this year, officials said.
The nodal officers and technical staff appointed for the PSA plants will undergo special training conducted by the Centre and work as point persons for the PSA monitoring system of the Centre, officials said. The plants will only start functioning after a clearance from the nodal officers and the technical persons appointed for the task, officials said, adding that this practice would help in troubleshooting. The PSA monitoring team of the Centre will directly be in touch with the point persons for the different PSA plants.