How
India managed the ten-fold Medical Oxygen demand for in one month…!!!
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a defining global
health crisis of our time and probably the greatest challenge the entire
mankind would have ever faced.
The COVID-19 pandemic
began its onslaught in India in the month of March 2020. The 1st wave peaked in the month of September
2020 with 1 million active cases. In the month of February 2021, the active
case count came down to 136K.
Beginning March 2021, the country witnessed the 2nd wave
with an unprecedented and steep growth trajectory in number of daily cases. In a span of one month daily new cases
went up from 12K to 400K, a jump of 33 times in a short span of 30 days.
As you
all are aware, Medical Oxygen has been an extremely critical element in the
treatment and recovery of patients infected with COVID-19.
As on today third week May 2021, in India, more than 900K people are on Medical Oxygen support, and it is further increasing.
COVID and Medical Oxygen Industry in India
India has a total Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) production capacity of 7200 (Tons Per Day) TPD being produced from 70 manufacturing locations, also called Air Separation Units (ASUs) spread across the country. The eastern region of the country has a fairly greater presence of these ASUs.
The current oxygen situation is characterized by a geographical mismatch in demand and supplies of LMO. While the Northern parts of India produce barely 13% of the country’s oxygen, it has been consuming 26% of the country’s total available oxygen. This is been substantiated by the 35% production capabilities of Eastern India, which requires only 10% of the total oxygen available in the country to treat its COVID patients.
In order to balance this mismatch, initiatives like Roll-On Roll-Off
Oxygen Express Train and Air Lifting
of empty cryogenic tankers
to reduce one-way travel time by 2 days which would have taken 10 to 11 days otherwise travelling from East/West to North.
One way empty tankers and return by Oxygen Express..!!
Over the past one month beginning April 2021, the LMO production has been increased from 7200 TPD to 9300 TPD, 30 % increase in production in one month, which has broken the Global benchmark...
As a nation,
India had 1171 LMO Tankers
available for distribution. In only one months’ time, India
has added 509 more Tanker to the total fleet to ease the stress on the distribution infrastructure to cater to the unusual increase in medical oxygen demand.
The addition of these 509 tankers has been made possible by the import of 101 tankers and conversion of 408 Cryogenic Nitrogen and Argon tankers to Oxygen tankers.
Bottlenecks
of Hospital Infrastructure
It’s important to take a note that, with the increased number of COVID-19 cases, every Hospital has increased the number of Beds, ventilators and its associated infrastructure.
But the Medical storage capacities and
associated equipment configuration were done based on pre-COVID consumption.
With less storage and increased consumption, these
tanks which used to get filled once in 4 day now needed 3 fills in a day.
Safety stock of medical oxygen went down to less than 8 hrs there by increasing
the number of SOS calls.
No one
questioned why the hospital didn’t the Hospitals augmented their medical oxygen
storage in past so many years….!!!!
What we
went through…!!!
We went through an unimaginable stressful time, we
didn’t had time to react and look back. We were given a task of which we didn’t
have time to plan and understand, we just did it.
We moved
2,50,000 MT of medical oxygen pan India just in one month..!!!
It's an unfathomable journey of hard work done to supply medical oxygen to the entire Nation, from 900 MT per day to 9000 MT per day, 10 times more done everyday in the entire 2nd wave.
It’s a
miracle..!!!
We feel very sad about the loss of lives…but that’s the nature of the disease in this pandemic.
We are preparing for the next wave now...!!
