Hyderabad: In a major initiative to avoid shortage of oxygen, the Telangana government has decided to establish oxygen production plants with a capacity of 324 tonnes in 48 government hospitals across the State. Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao instructed the Medical and Health Department officials in this regard and also asked them to set up a liquid oxygen plant with 100-tonne capacity in Hyderabad.
As per the Chief Minister’s directions, six units of 16-tonne capacity, 15 eight-tonne units and 27 four-tonne units will be developed in Hyderabad, district and area hospitals respectively across the State. The Chief Minister also spoke to the manufacturers and asked them to supply 11 oxygen tankers with a 20-tonne capacity each within the next 10 days. “Telangana should not be dependent on other States for oxygen supply in near future,” he said.
Speaking at a marathon high-level meeting on Covid-19 situation in the State at Pragathi Bhavan on Monday, Chandrashekhar Rao urged the people of Telangana, particularly the poor, to undergo Covid treatment in government hospitals. As on Monday, 6,926 beds were vacant in government hospitals, of which 2,253 are oxygen beds, 533 ICU beds and 4,140 general beds.
“The government hospitals are fully equipped with beds, oxygen, and drugs like Remdesivir. Hence, people are requested not to waste their money by going to private hospitals and instead, obtain free treatment from government hospitals. For Covid-19, the treatment and the medicines are the same in both government and private hospitals,” he advised.
Chandrashekhar Rao instructed the officials to use the existing 200-bed hospital at Anantagiri in Vikarabad district to provide Covid-19 treatment as well as make arrangements to utilise the hospitals of Singareni, TSRTC, CISF, CRPF, Railways, Army, ESI and other such hospitals for Covid patients.
The Chief Minister also instructed the officials to provide necessary equipment and medicines to ENT Hospital in Koti, Gandhi Hospital in Secunderabad and medical colleges in the districts to treat Covid-19 patients who are getting infected with ‘black fungus’ or Mucormycosis. He gave orders to immediately procure about 25 micro-debrider machines and HD endoscopic cameras required in these hospitals.
As per the State Cabinet’s decision, Chandrashekhar Rao asked the authorities to initiate measures and invite global tenders for procuring Covid vaccines. He wanted them to constantly coordinate with the central authorities and obtain the mandatory quota of vaccines allocated to the State. The Centre had supplied only 57.3 lakh doses of vaccine to Telangana so far while 1.86 lakh doses, including 1.28 lakh of Covishield doses and 58,230 of Covaxin, are currently available in the State.
New medical, nursing colleges
Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao announced that the State government is ready to sanction necessary funds to create and improve medical infrastructure in the State. Towards this purpose, the government decided to establish new medical colleges at Sangareddy, Jagitial, Kothagudem, Wanaparthy, Mancherial and Mahabubabad. He also instructed officials to set up nursing colleges in addition to the medical colleges, especially in districts where nursing colleges don’t exist. He asked them to sanction necessary funds for nursing colleges that had already received necessary approvals.
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