Understanding India’s Oxygen Crisis
With the major spike in the number of covid cases in India the second wave of covid is testing Indian healthcare systems. The number of cases went to 3–4 lakh per day from 12–15 thousand per day within a span of 6 weeks during the months of April and May hence making the situation very challenging. The situation becomes more dire when there is a lack of medical supplies all over the country including oxygen supply, ventilator and limited human resource. With over 30 lakhs active cases in the country India is facing some serious crisis in supply of Medical oxygen.
What is Medical Oxygen?
The air we breathe is a combination of different gases such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc. Medical oxygen means high-purity oxygen which is developed for the human body in order to use it for medical treatments. Oxygen which is used industrially does not match the purity level of medical oxygen and therefore it is not appropriate for human use. The medical oxygen cylinder actually contains highly pure oxygen free from all the contaminations.
How to Produce Medical Oxygen?
There are several methods of producing Medical oxygen with varying in capacity. The most common method of producing it is by separation of air using an Air Separation Unit (ASU). Most of the plants containing ASU works on Fractional distillation method which can produce large quantities of oxygen having purity around 97–99%. Cryogenic containers are used for the distribution of this medical oxygen from the plant. Another method involves setting up a Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) unit near the medical facility in order to remove the transportation of medical oxygen. For household purposes portable oxygen generators also known as oxygen concentrators can be utilized which provides purity of 95%.
Why is India Facing Shortage in Oxygen Supply?
During the pre-covid days India was producing around 7200 tonnes of oxygen per day out of which 15% was utilized for medical oxygen. Also, during the second the maximum requirement of medical oxygen was not more than 3000 tonnes per day. With the rise covid cases during the second wave the requirement of medical oxygen reached above 6000 tonnes of oxygen per day, hence to meet this demand the production of oxygen was taken to 9000 tonnes per day out of which maximum was utilized as medical oxygen. Despite all these efforts of supporting the demand many states such as Delhi, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh were facing shortage of oxygen supply.
The major issues were developed in the supply chain following the uneven supply of oxygen in some of the states which is supposed to be done in cryogenic tankers. The logistical issue in supplying the oxygen is a major concern as the availability of cryogenic tankers 24*7 was difficult, which is important as the hospital is facing shortage of oxygen at the same time. Also, with the demand of oxygen even in the remote areas the range of cryogenic tankers has to be increased and with the limited number of cryogenic tankers the supply to match was difficult. By the utilization of cryogenic takers for nitrogen and argon for the supply of oxygen, developing point to point green corridors for Oxygen Express trains and also by navy and air force, some serious efforts have been made for logistical issues of the medical oxygen.
With the number of cases having such a spike and experts predicting the third wave the oxygen crisis can also increase hence import of oxygen and setting up more cryogenic tankers is necessary. The Government has imported 50,000 tonnes of oxygen and planned to set-up 162 PSA units in public health facilities across states. Despite all these efforts, a lot of things will depend on whether the country is able to reduce the daily cases of covid in the next few weeks.
Written by: Maharshi Vidhyarthi(Instagram: @mahi_103)
Vociferous Writers (Instagram: @vociferouswriters)
