Puducherry to enhance O2 bed capacity within 15 days

By June first week, the total number of beds with oxygen facility will go upto 2,800 in government hospitals and private medical colleges. This was announced by Puducherry health secretary, Arun. 

The health infrastructure of Puducherry and Karaikal is under pressure as the number of Covid-19 patients has spiked. 

According to the Covid dashboard statistics of the Union Territory of Puducherry, in Puducherry alone, around 1,504 patients are on oxygen bed support and 196 are on ventilator support. Karaikal has 87 patients on Oxygen support and 13 on ventilators. 

In state run JIPMER, IGMCRI and government hospitals there are no oxygen beds or ventilators available for patients while in private hospitals ventilators are not available and few oxygen beds. 

According to health department officials, the number of beds in IGMCRI is being enhanced from 320 to 600 and besides installing a liquid oxygen tank to enhance the storage capacity to 16 kilo liters. 

There is a daily allocation of 40 MT of oxygen to the Indira Gandhi Medical College and Research Institute (IGMCRI) which is supplied from Inox Oxygen plant at Puducherry. 

Jawaharlal Institute Of PostGraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER) is also increasing its bed capacity and its oxygen capacity by installing an additional 20kilo litre capacity tank. 

The Pressure Swing Absorption (PSA) generators and ventilators which were procured from the PM Care fund of Rs 4 crore are also put into use with the PSA generator being installed at the Government general hospital, Puducherry. Here the number of oxygen beds is also enhanced to 165. 

In Karaikal also, the oxygen beds are being increased to 335 from present 98 by establishing a PSA generator with capacity of 500 LPM. In Mahe and Yanam also, oxygen cylinders are being installed and presently there is less scarcity of oxygen beds in these two places of the UT. 

The Union territory has also received 90 D Type oxygen cylinders, 420 Remdesivir vials and 2,500 Covid testing kits from the central government on Tuesday. 

However, the shortage of anaesthesiologists is turning into a major challenge for the Puducherry administration. Udayashankar,director of IGMCRI while speaking to IANS said, "We have advertised for the post of 12 anaesthesiologists but there are no responses even after one month has passed".