Chief Minister Pramod Sawant looks on at the damaged pipeline that triggered a minor oxygen leakage on Tuesday night. Captured by : Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
South Goa district hospital’s liquid medical oxygen tank once again gave some anxious moments to the health care workers and administrators after a minor leakage was detected late Tuesday night.
The district hospital management, however, continued the supply of liquid medical oxygen from the tank given that the leakage was minor in nature and that there were 530 patients in the hospital as on Tuesday night.
If the leakage during the process of transferring the medial liquid oxygen from the tanker to the plant had caused wastage of huge amount of oxygen earlier in the day, the late night leakage gave some anxious moments even though officials claimed the hospital had adequate number of oxygen trolleys at its disposal.
District Collector Ruchika Katyal and deputy Collector Jyoti Kumari rushed to the hospital on receiving the message of leakage in the oxygen tank. Senior officials manning the hospital also rushed to the spot to take stock of the situation.
While it was decided to continue supply of the liquid oxygen to patients, an SOS was flashed to the Delhi-based company by Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) seeking an expert team for Goa to plug the leakage.
By mid-morning Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and his team of official also visited the district hospital to take stock of the situation. In the briefing, the Chief Minister told that while the oxygen tank had no leakage, the minor leakage was detected in the pipeline supplying the liquid oxygen from the tank to the hospital.
As a precautionary measure, three trolleys containing oxygen cylinder were kept as reserve at the district hospital when the supply from the liquid oxygen tank was stopped to undertake the repairs.
After inspecting the tank and the work in progress, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant later told the media that the expert team was attending to the issue of minor leakage, even as he exuded confidence that the same will be repaired and recommissioned within three hours.
“As the leakage was minor, it was decided to continue the liquid oxygen supply to meet the requirements of the patients. Since the expert team has come down, we expect the work to be complete within three hours”, he said, while saying the liquid oxygen tank will be filled up again by evening.
“I want to make clear there ought to be no issue over oxygen supply to the South Goa district hospital because of the leakage. All the four trolleys are full with cylinders and will meet the requirements,” Sawant said.
