Hospital to expand oxygen generation capacity: Dr Ahangar

Srinagar, April 20: Amid the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been no change in the Corona virus strain in Kashmir since the last one year, Director Sher-I-Kashmir Institute of medical Sciences (SKIMS) Srinagar, Dr A.G. Ahangar said on Tuesday.

“Over the past few months, we sent samples to New Delhi, Pune for testing and to know the exact strain or the mutation that has happened. But till date, there has been no change in the strain since the last one year,” he said at a press conference in Srinagar.

India has reported many Coronavirus variants leading to concerns of mutations causing increase in fresh infections. Earlier, such concerns were raised in the valley as well.

Elaborating on the issue, Ahangar said until mid January, the COVID cases were almost negligible. However, for the last two and half months there has been a huge surge in admissions in their hospital again.

“Today, we have had 156 patients admitted, out of which two are on invasive ventilation, four on non-invasive ventilation and more than 100 with comorbidities are on oxygen,” he said.

The director said for the last two weeks, they lost two patients depending on the severity of the infection be it related to COVID or multi-organ failure.

Following the surge in fresh cases, the director said they have kept 60 beds and special wards for the COVID-19 patients in the infectious disease block.

Dr. Ahangar said in the past one year, SKIMS conducted more than four lakh RT-PCR, and treated 22,000 patients.

The director said the hospital is going to enhance oxygen generation capacity at the institute in view of the need of patients and the fresh surge in cases.

“We have a 3250 LPM generation capacity at SKIMS. We have 1000 oxygen cylinders. Today we have a requirement of 3.93 litres per hour. We have a generation capacity of 1.95 lakh litres per hour. We are managing our requirements,” he said.

Dr. Ahangar said seeing the trend of the pandemic, they are trying to gear up further oxygen facilities.

“We have procured two more oxygen concentrators which will help to increase oxygen capacity. We will be fulfilling this requirement also,” he said.

At the press conference, Director Health Services Kashmir, Dr Mushtaq Rather said there is no oxygen problem in any hospitals saying oxygen cylinders are available in bulk.

“We are not facing any problems with oxygen. We have devised a three tier strategy. We have to focus on the preventive measures. We must also encourage the vaccination and clear myths about the same. Vaccine is safe and it will protect us,” he said.