The Delhi High Court on Tuesday will hear the plea seeking directions to Lieutenant Governor and GNCTD to frame guidelines for hospitals to create “Oxygen Master Plan” including mandatory directions to hospitals to have their own Oxygen Plants as a licensing requirement for hospital, arrangement of Oxygen tankers, Uninterrupted Oxygen supply points, Oxygen ambulances.
The plea has been filed by Jaswinder Singh Jolly through Advocate Naginder Benipal & Harpreet Singh Hora.
The petitioner submitted that the self-reliance of hospitals having their own Oxygen supply chain in form of Oxygen plants on lines of hospitals in Indore, West Bengal, Commonwealth Covid Care Village (Delhi) is imperative in order to prevent the large scale loss of life which has happened in Delhi during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The plea averred that Delhi has also faced the problem of air pollution due to which people have faced health issues and the said problem of air pollution would be another catalyst in deterioration of people’s respiratory system and thus, medical oxygen is a necessity in the present times and the future also. It said, “guidelines for “Oxygen Master Plan” including mandatory directions to hospitals to have their own individual Oxygen Plants, Uninterrupted Oxygen supply points, Oxygen ambulances etc. are necessary in the hospitals of Delhi.”
The petitioner submitted Medical oxygen is critical to the treatment of Covid as well as Non-Covid patients. The entire available capacity of oxygen is used for supply for industrial and medical use, which is in the form of Liquid Medical Oxygen. The major suppliers for both industrial and medical oxygen are steel plants in the public and private sectors, and private entities and the hospitals in Delhi are completely dependent on those external entities for their Oxygen & are not self-reliant as on date.
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It said, that the state of Delhi is not “Oxygen rich” in terms of medical oxygen as the same is not produced evenly in India. Some states are oxygen producing States such as Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Jharkhand but the state of Delhi do not have production capacity and rely on supply of oxygen from oxygen producing States thereby such guidelines and mandatory provisions are necessary to prevent any loss of life in Delhi’s hospitals in the present as well as coming future.
Source: ILNS