PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Tuesday visited Covid wards at Goa Medical College and Hospital for the first time and claimed that mismanagement of an “abundant supply of oxygen” and delays in transporting oxygen to the patients is what causes high number of Covid deaths at GMC.
“I wanted to see the internal arrangement, understand people’s grievances and the causes of the uncannily high number of deaths. I feel that it is oxygen mismanagement, housekeeping and transport of oxygen. We have to watch out for these lacunae. We need ward-wise in-charges to oversee these tasks,” Sawant said.
CM claimed that GMC has 100 per cent and abundant oxygen”. “It is likely that the transport and supply of this to the patients isn’t streamlined,” he explained.
Later in the day, Sawant convened an emergency meeting to deliberate upon the ward-wise supply and management of oxygen. However, Health Minister did not attend the meeting. Following the meeting, CM assured to streamline everything within 24 hours and ensured that no patient shall die because of lack of oxygen anymore.
At the meeting, CM directed GMC authorities to maintain a minimum backup of 55 trolleys to ensure uninterrupted oxygen supply. He said that 600 additional empty jumbo cylinders will be provided within 24-hours to tide over the rising requirement in the wee hours.
Additional expert trolley drivers and Multi-Tasking Staff will also be on-boarded to streamline services with Sawant blaming the drivers for delays in supply of oxygen to the patients.
Interestingly, Sawant passed on a major onus of responsibility to Scoop Oxygen, the company that supplies oxygen for GMC’s central pipeline. Representatives of the company were also asked to remain present at the meeting.
“It is also the responsibility of Scoop and they cannot wash their hands of this now. They have a contract with GMC for 10 years and they cannot pass on the blame to the government. We will fix responsibility. We have given them all the support and yet there are delays. We can take over oxygen manufacturing at any time but this company has the expertise. But I will not keep quiet if they create delays in oxygen supply,” Sawant lashed out.
Following the meeting, it was learnt that the oxygen supplier company has been asked to deploy additional staff to prevent delays.
Speaking about issues concerning Covid treatment at private hospitals, CM Sawant has urged citizens to lodge a complaint if any private hospitals empanelled under Deen Dayal Swasthya Seva Yojana refuse to admit a Covid patient based on the DDSSY card. He promised action against these erring medical institutions while explaining that the government is prepared to reimburse private hospitals within 15 days for treating Covid patients.
Meanwhile, the government has pushed the date for operationalization of the 20,000 litres capacity oxygen plant at the new super speciality block at GMC by eight to 10 days. It was earlier promised that the plant would be ready by May 15.
As a last ditch effort at reducing the burden on GMC, the government has decided to create a “step-down” facility at Dr Shyama Prasad Mukherjee stadium to shift patients who are on room oxygen.
