CHANDIGARH, MAY 20:
Given the rising numbers of Corona cases, the Government of Punjab constituted a special control room on 26th April, 2021, consisting of senior IAS officers, to meet the challenges of oxygen supply. Similarity on 10th May the Govt created Another control room to look after real time availability of beds and attached issues .
Qua the 02 control room , The State had to meet primarily two challenges. On one side, there is no production of liquid medical oxygen within the State and the other, being a north-western state, Punjab is heavily dependent upon far off states for the oxygen supplies.
To manage seamless supply of medical oxygen, the control room immediately started working dividing the work into five verticals for better management.
First vertical collates oxygen demand from all 277 hospitals of the state through District administrations. The nodal officer of every hospital reports it’s Oxygen requirement which is collected at State level on daily basis. All the hospitals have been told to raise their SOS twelve hours in advance to the district administration so that timely action can be taken by the State.
Second Wing manages oxygen from outside the state. When the present control room started its functioning, the team took charge of the 19 tankers available in the state for ferrying oxygen. This team tracks all the Liquid Medical Oxygen movement on road, rail and air. The consistent efforts of this team helped in increasing the number of available tankers from 19 to 32, including 4 tankers from the GoI. This team also started working upon the run of oxygen express and monitored OTDS.
Third Wing manages oxygen from within the State by optimising the working of Air Separation Units. The team also looks after the refilling units so that the LMO is filled in cylinders without lapse. This team ensures that the limited number of oxygen cylinders that are available remains in continuous circulation between the hospitals, ASUs, and refilling units.
Fourth team matches the oxygen supply with demand. This team matches the Medical Oxygen available and coming into the State with the demand generated by the health care facilities. The micro-management done by the team maintains the timely utilization of limited resources available with the state.
Fifth vertical of the control room is Data Centre and Best Practices wing. This wing studies and monitors the covid situation within the state and the country. The team analyzes the best practices, which are being followed in the country and across the globe, to fit as per the suitability of the state.
With these continuous efforts, the state has been able to ensure regular oxygen supply to all the hospitals. Punjab has also helped neighboring states in the time of distress. The state has been able to reduce the turnaround time in procuring oxygen from far eastern states of the country. The Punjab Government also managed to create an adequate reserve of oxygen to cater to any emergency.
The SECOND Control room that looks after bed management has created an inventory of all beds available in the state. Now this bed availability is available real-time and can be viewed at www.statecontrolroom.punjab.gov.in
A chat bot has also been created and every interested COVID patient can chat on WhatsApp and get replies regarding his queries from the chatbot . Apart from this outbound calls are being made to Covid patients . These two control rooms are working in tandem with each other to ensure that people of Punjab face no problems .
Apart from all the efforts made by Government machinery and the control room officers the Govt of punjab was also thankful to people of Punjab as they are following the Covid guidelines in all sincerity.
