With funds from the PM-CARES program, a hundred new hospitals will get their own oxygen plants, the government announced on Thursday, amid a surge in coronavirus cases that has wreaked havoc on healthcare systems around the country and left many states searching for treatment necessities.
Oxygen supplies were short in many states, but the government stated that India has been processing oxygen at maximum capacity for the past two days and has increased production.
The health ministry said in a statement that “along with the ramped-up demand… and the surplus stocks available, the current supply is adequate.”
Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan have all been designated as “high burden” states, according to a separate government release.
According to the declaration, “an indicative system has been established to advise the states on the sources of medical oxygen.”
It said that 162 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) plants sanctioned under the PM-CARES fund are being closely examined for early completion. PSA plants help hospitals make their own medical oxygen.
The government will also designate another 100 hospitals in remote areas for consideration of PSA plant installation, according to the statement.
Experts have blamed everything from official complacency to violent strains as COVID-19 infections hit a new daily high on Thursday. The inability to practice physical distancing and wear face masks was blamed by the authorities.
According to health ministry numbers, India has added over 2 lakh infections in the last 24 hours, marking the seventh daily record increase in the last eight days, while 1,038 deaths bring the total number of fatalities to 173,123.
With 1.41 crore pathogens, it is just second to the United States, which has 3.14 crore.
Despite injecting approximately 11.4 crore vaccine doses, the third-largest number in the world after the United States and China, India has only reached a limited portion of its 135 million population.
