More than a third of the 62 pressure swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen plants installed at government sites in Bihar under the Prime Minister’s Citizens Relief and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM Cares) Fund have encountered operational problems a month after commissioning. people familiar with the situation said. said.
An audit conducted by the state health department on Friday found that 44 of the 119 PSA plants commissioned in the state were not operating against the planned 127.
At least 55% of the 44 suspended PSA plants comes from the PM Cares fund, the official said.
Of the 24 faulty PSA units monitored by PM CARES, seven had problems with oxygen purity, six had problems with leaks, two had problems with zeolite (which absorbs nitrogen and separates oxygen from the atmosphere) and white dust in oxygen tanks. Problems, 2 required replacement vehicles. (required to maintain an uninterrupted oxygen supply during a power outage), one had pressure problems, and six others had ignition problems, problems with compressors, stabilizers, alarms, suction canisters and valves.
“This number is dynamic and may change daily. The Center is monitoring the functioning of PSA units on a daily basis and has approached the suppliers of the central departments where these units are installed to urgently resolve the issue,” the official said. said.
500 LPM (liters per minute) PSA units at Narkatiaganj Affiliated Hospital (SDH) in Benipur, Darbhanga District and West Champaran, 1000 LPM units at Buxar Affiliated Hospital and Sadar (District) Hospitals in Khagaria, Munger and Siwan , 2000 lpm units, According to an official, the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna is facing the problem of oxygen purity.
The purity of oxygen at the SDH plant in Benipur is a minimum of 65% and the purity of oxygen at the SDH plant at Narkatiaganj is 89%.
Officials aware of the matter said that as per the Centre’s guidelines, PSA installations must maintain oxygen purity at a minimum of 93 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
1000 L/min PSA unit in Darbhanga Medical College Hospital (DMCH), 500 L/min unit in SDH Tekari in Gaya district, 200 L/min unit in SDH Tarapur in Munger district, 1000 L/min unit in district Purnia Hospital and 200 LPM plant at Sheohar, officials said, The leak occurred in the medical gas piping system (MGPS) or oxygen cylinder at SDH Vikramganj’s 250 LPM plant in Rohtas district.
The SDH Mahua plant in Vaishali district is experiencing pressure problems. KSA installations must maintain oxygen pressure at 4-6 bar. According to the Center’s guidelines, the required oxygen pressure level for patients admitted to hospital beds is 4.2 bar.
PSA plants located at SDH Pusa and Jagdishpur in Bhojpur district require replacement of automatic changeover units.
Of the 62 PSA plants in the state owned by PM Cares, DRDO has set up 44 while HLL Infrastructure and Technical Services Limited (HITES) and Central Medical Services Society (CMSS) have set up nine each.
During a simulation exercise on December 23, only 79 of the 119 PSA plants in the state were found to be fully operational.
Around 14 PSA plants, including those at the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College Hospital in Bhagalpur and the Government Medical College in Beitia, have reported problems with oxygen purity. These also include some PSA plants located in the districts of Bhojpur, Darbhanga, East Champaran, Gaya, Lakhisarai, Madhepura, Madhubani, Munger, Nalanda, Purnia, Rohtas and West Champaran.
Leaks were reported from 12 PSA plants located in Araria, East Champaran, Gaya, Gopalganj, Katihar, Khagaria, Madhubani, Nalanda, Purnia, Saharsa and Bhagalpur districts. Pressure problems are being observed at 15 PSA plants including Bhojpur, Gaya, Kaimur, Kishanganj, Lakisala, Madhepura, Madhubani, Munger, Nalanda, Punia and some plants in Rohtas and West Champaran districts.
The central team recently observed that PSA plants in government-owned enterprises in the state are being run by untrained personnel.
“We hire trained personnel from the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) to manage PSA plants. They have already started visiting the accommodation centers and are expected to be there by next week,” a health department official said on condition of anonymity. . “We will not allow any pressure swing adsorption device that does not meet the cleanliness levels prescribed by the Center to supply oxygen to a hospital bed,” he said.
Only 6 out of 62 PSA plants under PM Cares and 60 PSA plants under state governments or plants set up by private and public sector companies under corporate social responsibility have diesel generator sets as backup power source.
The official said the state government on Thursday issued an order mandating installation of diesel generator sets at every PSA plant.
With the Delta and Omicron variants of Covid-19 approaching, medical colleges, district hospitals, district hospitals and community health centers have installed PSA units that generate oxygen using gases in the atmosphere to address the oxygen crisis. The third wave of coronavirus.
Bihar has increased its oxygen capacity to 448 tonnes from the projected oxygen requirement of 377 tonnes during the peak of active cases last year. Among them, 140 tons of oxygen will be produced by 122 PSA oxygen plants, and 308 tons of oxygen can be stored in cryogenic liquid medical oxygen cylinders in 10 national medical colleges and hospitals.
The state has a total of 15,178 beds and the total bed capacity for treating Covid-19 patients is 19,383. Senior health officials in the state said that 12,000 of these beds are supplied with oxygen through centralized pipelines.
The Center had allocated a daily quota of 214 tonnes of medical oxygen to Bihar, but due to logistical problems, it could deliver only 167 tonnes in the first week of May last year. The maximum oxygen demand in the state was subsequently estimated at 240-250 tonnes, the official said.
This led to one of the worst medical oxygen crises at the height of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic in April-May last year, when the Delta variant claimed many lives.
Meanwhile, Union Health Minister Rajesh Bhushan on Friday reviewed the preparedness of oxygen infrastructure, including PSA plants, oxygen concentrators and cylinders, ventilators, with states and union territories.
Ruescher has written about health care, aviation, electricity and a variety of other issues. A former employee of The Times of India, he worked in the reporting and reporting departments. He has over 25 years of experience in broadcast and print journalism in Assam, Jharkhand and Bihar. …check details