One of the most poignant images of the second wave was of COVID-19 positive people struggling to get medical oxygen. Non-governmental organisations, service groups, corporates and many individuals chipped in to procure oxygen cylinders/concentrators that became a life-saver for many. Remember the price of these devices had also skyrocketed due to the demand. Where are these equipment now?
Many organisations The Hindu Downtown spoke to said they had kept it safely for use in the eventuality of another medical crisis.
Greater Chennai Corporation has sent the devices that it received through donations to its various Urban Primary Health Centres. “We received 760 devices from various groups including corporates, social groups and individuals and they are kept safe at our UPHCs,” says S Banumati, joint director/ additional city medical officer, Medical Service Department, Greater Chennai Corporation. She says a few of them are being used at these centres depending on the need.
Members of Jain International Trade Organisation (JITO) ran various initiatives to ensure people got oxygen including deploying buses fitted with oxygen cylinders. In May, it had procured more than 40 oxygen concentrators and had even set up its own ‘Oxygen Concentrator Bank’. The concentrators were being lent to people on a no-cost basis. The organisation, however, is yet to take a final decision on these concentrators but plans to give them away to the government or a charitable hospital.
Another initiative had devices used by scuba drivers sourced to help those in dire need. “These are high-grade medical oxygen used by scuba drivers and instructors. When they were not need we returned the devices to them. The rest, around 10, are placed at an IT company’s data centre,” says a volunteer.
He says these machines have to be sanitised and kept away from dust and sun rays; so, an air-conditioned space where servers are stored takes cares of these cylinders.
Kadamai Education and Social Welfare Trust’s fitted autorickshaws with oxygen cylinder and arrived at the door step of homes. The Trust had sourced 48 cylinders of 10 litre and 47 litre capacity and ferried them in autorickshaws across the city. They returned 18 to the medical equipment company they sourced it from and the rest are kept at a room near the Trust’s office in North Chennai.
“The pandemic is not over yet and some emergency cases needing oxygen do come up once in a while, which is why we decided to keep 30 equipment with us,” says C. Vasantha Kumar, founder-secretary of the trust.
G Sripriya, founder, Gold Heart Foundation, which coordinated with a network of NGOs during the crisis, says a few organisations have given it to private hospitals so that it can be put to use. “They plan to take it back if a need for them arises, which is a better plan than keeping them unused in a corner,” says Sripriya, adding that they have around six cylinders that are circulated among homes of senior citizens.
C.J. Zeba, who had turned his Maruti Omni into a makeshift ambulance, complete with an oxygen dispensing arrangement to ferry people to hospitals for free, says his vehicle remains the same. “I started with one 10-litre cylinder and added five other during the course of the months. Two are still fitted in the vehicle and is supplied to people. The others are given to homes of people,” says Zeba.
He says there are people who do not want to be treated in a hospital and those requiring the oxygen gas reach out to him. “Recently, a family in Red Hills called for the cylinder as the patient did not want hospitalisation and only after I was convinced that they got consent from the doctor did I deliver it to them,” says Zeba.
Some groups bought the equipment from medical equipment companies to return after the demand for oxygen starting falling in the city.
