The 816-bed Jumbo Covid Hospital, run by the Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation in Nehrunagar, is facing an oxygen supply problem for the past three days as the designated contractor has stopped supplying oxygen to the hospital.
All top officials, including PCMC commissioner, FDA joint commissioner and divisional commissioner, are making efforts to restore smooth supply of oxygen to the hospital.
“We are facing oxygen supply problem to the Jumbo Covid Hospital for the last three days. All top officials are making efforts to get adequate oxygen supply to the jumbo hospital,” Deputy Municipal Commissioner Smita Zagade told The Indian Express. “In the past three days, oxygen has been procured from different suppliers. So, the jumbo hospital has not experienced any shortage,” she said.
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“The contractor was providing 40 metric tonne of oxygen daily to the Jumbo Hospital and YCM hospital. Of this, 20 metric tonne was provided to the Jumbo Hospital. But three days ago, the contractor told us that his supply had depleted and he was not in a position to provide oxygen to the jumbo hospital, though he said he will provide 20 metric tonne to YCM hospital,” Zagade said.
After this, Zagade said they searched for oxygen suppliers and managed to get 20-22 metric tonne oxygen every day for last three days. “The Divisional Commissioner, PCMC commissioner and FDA joint commissioner are helping us in this task,” she said.
PCMC officials said five civic-run hospitals need at least 60 metric tonne of oxygen every day. “Jumbo and YCMH get 20 tonne each and the rest is provided to the other three hospitals,” he said.
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Dr Sangram Kapale said, in-charge of the Jumbo Covid hospital, said, “The hospital needs 12 metric tonne oxygen every day and the rest eight tonne is stored in the oxygen tank. So far, we have not experienced any shortage of oxygen and so, there is no question of patients being affected,” he said.
The 800-bed Jumbo Hospital is filled to capacity. More than 700 patients are on oxygen support.
PCMC spokesperson Shirish Poredi said, “We are taking care of the oxygen supply to our hospitals. So far, there is no shortage.”
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they demanded....The story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
Manoj More is on Facebook with 4.9k followers (Manoj More), on twitter manojmore91982 ... Read More