Hyderabad runs short of oxygen

Hyderabad: Hospitals in Hyderabad are facing shortage of supply of oxygen cylinders. The suppliers say that there has been a sudden increase in the demand and they are not able to cope with it despite running the refuelling units 24x7.

The heavy demand for oxygen from private hospitals has also led to shortage of availability of liquid oxygen. Many hospitals are now depending on oxygen concentrator which takes in air and removes nitrogen from it, leaving an oxygen enriched gas for use by Covid patients.

Currently, the State needs 2.4 metric tonnes of oxygen, while production is just half the requirement. It is learnt that hardly 100 metric tonnes of oxygen is available in hospitals now. The dealers say that it would take at least one week to replenish the stocks.

There were also allegations that the suppliers were sending oxygen cylinders to neighbouring Maharashtra districts.

While sources in the Medical and Health department admit that there is a shortage of oxygen supply, officials continue to maintain that enough stocks were available in government hospitals at least for a week. They said liquid oxygen stocks would soon arrive from Karnataka and Chhattisgarh.

When The Hans India correspondent spoke to an agency as a customer, the dealer said, "Sir there is no oxygen cylinder and you will not find it anywhere in the city.

We are getting a large number of calls but are unable to supply. As there is an acute shortage of supply, the cost of cylinders has also been hiked. As against Rs 2,500 that was charged till a week ago or so, now the cylinder is available for Rs 4,500."

In the meantime, some NGOs like Mission Feed the Hunger have arranged about 600 cylinders for the needy free of cost in the last three days. But now they too are facing a shortage of cylinders. They said they get about 120 calls every day but are not able to meet the demand.