Hyderabad: Oxygen order takes away breath of private hospitals

Hyderabad: The Government Order asking all 100-bed private hospitals to set up oxygen generation plants in the hospital premises has not gone well with these hospital managements which feel that this 'unilateral' decision was something which cannot be implemented.

A delegation of the private hospitals' management would meet the officials soon and submit a representation demanding the government to either withdraw the order or provide financial assistance to set up the oxygen plants.

These managements say that setting up an oxygen plant would cost at least Rs 50 lakh to Rs 70 lakh. There are about 200 hospitals with 100-bed capacity in the State. About 70 per cent of them are in the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation limits.

Telangana Hospitals and Nursing Association (THANA) vice-president Dr V Rakesh said that the hospitals require additional space to set up the oxygen plants and a separate team to maintain them. If they have to set up oxygen plants each hospital would need at least 100 yards to 150 yards of space.

There is no excess space available in any of these hospitals. Buying land next to hospitals is also not possible as it is not available and where it is available, the cost is too high.

The association further pointed out that under normal circumstances, none of these hospitals have occupancy rate of more than 50 per cent and the demand for oxygen beds would also be very less.

Hence, setting up a plant with a maintenance team was an unviable proposition. The problems had arisen because of the pandemic. Another factor is that the government had fixed very low rates of Rs 7,500 and Rs 9,500 per day for oxygen beds which again was not a cost-effective proposal for these small hospitals.

The management of hospitals are not interested in providing medical treatment to the seriously ill patients at these rates, they added.

The association leaders point out that there was no specific norm to set up oxygen plants by private hospitals in the Clinical Establishment Act and Disaster Management Act. Hence, they want the government to reconsider its decision.