As Centre asks states to judiciously use oxygen, MP’s Khandwa Medical College model could be trendsetter

BHOPAL: With the centre asking states to ensure judicious use of oxygen and reduce the waste of liquid medical oxygen at a time when the demand for oxygen is growing rapidly across the country due to the COVID-19 surge, the model of plausible usage of oxygen successfully adopted by the Government Medical College in Khandwa district of Madhya Pradesh could be the perfect trendsetter for all states.

The Government Medical College in Khandwa district of MP (Khandwa is among the few districts of MP which have till date managed to control new COVID-19 cases) has put in place a successful model through which it has been able to judiciously use and save the scarce liquid medical oxygen.

The medical college has put in place a mélange of best practices, spanning from correct identification and re-classification of patients as per oxygen requirement to segregating patients without oxygen need to separate floor and from monitoring the correct oxygen use based on actual need and forecasting the demand based on admitted patient requirement to the training of human resource as per sudden rise and corresponding change management.

The five-floored Medical College hospital has monitored the correct oxygen use based on actual need and forecasting the demand based on admitted patient requirement.

While patients needing no oxygen are admitted on the fifth floor and disconnected from direct pipeline, those admitted on the fourth floor (also disconnected from direct pipeline) are getting oxygen support between one to five liters per minute from oxygen Concentrators.

On the third floor Type B cylinders/centralized oxygen supply (NBS) of one to 15 liters supply per minute is being ensured, while on the second floor centralized oxygen supply (ventilator/BiPAP/HFNC/NBS) is being ensured to reduce wastage of oxygen.

According to Khandwa district collector Anay Dwivedi, the use of best and judicious practices have resulted in reducing the usage of oxygen from 100 cylinders per hour to 30 cylinders per hour, thus helping saving 70 cylinders per hour and 1800 cylinders in a day.

“We even talked to the oxygen tanker drivers who told us that by lifting the tanker’s front wheel up to 1.5 ft, 300-350 kg more oxygen can be secured through the tank’s dead storage. We acted over it by first lifting the tanker’s front wheel by nine inches and managed to get 75 kg extra oxygen from the tank’s dead storage, which was enough to support the requirement of the hospital’s Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) for three additional days. We’re lifting the tankers by up to 1.5 ft by a wooden wedge, through which we’re able to get 300-350 kg extra oxygen, which is equal to three or more hours supply to our college,” Dwivedi added.

“Line pressure, line and supply issues too are being studied by our engineers so that more and more liquid oxygen can be saved,” he maintained.