Frame guidelines for hospitals to create "oxygen master plan": PIL in Delhi High Court

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) has been moved in Delhi High Court seeking direction to Delhi Government to frame guidelines to 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 and oxygen ambulances.

Jaswinder Singh Jolly, in his plea filed through Advocates Naginder Benipal and Harpreet Singh Hora, states 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.

According to the petition, having its own Oxygen generation facility is equally important as having permits, Electricity and water, sewage, biomedical Waste, fire and Health License, Employment of employees (Doctors, Nurses, Pharmacists) for running a hospital.

Several hospitals in Delhi had put up SOS calls and tweets seeking help as they had run out of oxygen supply at the eleventh hour and Oxygen supplies from other states had taken considerable time due to which there has been a massive loss of life in some hospitals in Delhi and thus, guidelines and directions for the hospitals to be self-reliant by setting their own oxygen plants is necessary in such a scenario, the plea read.

The petitioner said 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, he said.

The Central and state governments have issued several circulars, notices, orders to combat the problem of oxygen supply and efforts are still being made to address the problem of shortage of oxygen supply to hospitals, the plea read.

( With inputs from ANI )