Ludhiana district prepares for combatting ‘3rd Covid wave’, strengthens health infra
Nitin Jain
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, August 28
Learning lessons from the past, Ludhiana district has pulled out all the stops and has taken several steps to strengthen the existing health infrastructure for successfully taking on the possible third Covid wave.
It has not only become self-reliant in production but also storage capacity of medical oxygen, the acute shortage of which had cost many lives during the dreaded second Covid wave, the administration has confirmed.
Besides strengthening the production infrastructure, the district administration has also created double the storage capacity than the peak demand of life-saving gas recorded in Ludhiana when the pandemic was at its peak in mid-May, officials have disclosed.
Appreciating the efforts of the district administration in successfully tackling the first and second Covid waves, Chief Secretary Vini Mahajan, while reviewing the preparations here recently, expressed satisfaction over the fact that 50 per cent eligible population of the district (19,92,260 till Friday) has received either single or both doses of Covid vaccine, which would help fight effectively the possible wave of the pandemic in future, if any.
She directed the district authorities to further ramp up the ongoing sampling drive to test, trace and treat the virus patients at an early stage.
Sharing details, Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma told The Tribune that the district can store 150 MT (metric tonnes) of medical oxygen, which is over double than the peak demand of 70 MT registered in Ludhiana on May 16.
Similarly, the in-house oxygen generation capacity of five bottling plants established in the district has reached 3,500 cylinders, which is sufficient to meet the daily demand of the life-saving gas in Ludhiana from its sources as the peak demand of oxygen cylinders recorded on May 16 was 4,500 cylinders.
Moreover, 10 new pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen generating plants, which are a source of medical-grade life-saving gas, with 5,500 LPM (litre per minute) capacity have been installed at a cost of Rs 9.71 crore at 10 different hospitals in both government and private sectors. The expenditure has been borne by the government, several private companies and NGOs under their CSR activities.
While three PSA plants have already become operational, the rest are in the advanced stage of completion with six more to be functional within this month and the last one to start operations by October 10.
Besides, the district has already acquired maximum cylinders and the highest number of oxygen concentrators to build a strong medical oxygen infrastructure for meeting the anticipated high demand of the life-saving gas in future.
With this, Ludhiana, which being the largest district in the state with a maximum population of four million, will be able to avert the grim situation that it had passed through in the past, when an acute shortage of oxygen was faced while catering to the high demand of the serious and critical patients who were hospitalised in hordes during the second Covid wave, which had rapidly slid into a devastating crisis when the health facilities had unbearably fell short, oxygen supplies had ran low and many died even without seeing a doctor.
The DC revealed that among other preparations, the district administration has also established an eight-bed paediatric intensive care unit (PICU) worth Rs 50 lakh at the Civil Hospital.
Besides, 3,304 beds — 2,518 (1,768 level-2 and 750 level-3) in 77 private hospitals and 786 (750 level-2 and 36 level-3) in government facilities — have been created in the district for serious and critical patients.
