They have the facilities and they have the O2 production capacity. The issue is getting the O2 to the places they need it before they run out. A lot of that is on the people in charge. They knew (or should have known) this issue was coming up. The government is claiming there are priority O2 trains running around the clock and keeping an eye on production. Assuming that’s true the question becomes why they weren’t doing these things earlier before the situation became critical.
International technical and material aid won’t help with what amounts to a domestic logistics and management issue.
It looks like the Oxygen goof-up is largely a failure of individual states. Apparently the Central government sanctioned and funded emergency oxygen plants as far back as December, but then seems to have gotten busy in election campaigns and largely forgot about it for the next few months.
India’s states especially Maharashtra (MH) and Delhi are notoriously corrupt and ineffectual and I am not surprised they were caught with their pants down. (I just saw a video from August 2020 where an Opposition senator in Maharashtra’s state government urges the government to build emergency O2 plants.) In all those months, MH built ONE additional oxygen plant for a state with a population of 126 million. Today the state’s asshole Chief Minister went on TV pleading for oxygen when he could have created that capacity over an entire year. Fucking criminally negligent idiot.
The Indian military has C-130’s and Chinooks that could deliver oxygen anywhere needed internally.
If they need more airlift then they have C-17’s to haul large oxygen tanks internationally. Beyond that there should be international capacity to set up mobile hospitals as was done in the US.
All right. So Indian states and India itself is bad, evil, mean, incompetent and corrupt. And because of this a large number of Indians are suffocating.
Shall the rest of us just sit around and blame them for the lack of O2: “Welp… they had their chance to prepare”, “They have the means of production and distribution. If they screw it up it’s their fault.”
I’m not down with that.
If the Reddest, Trumpiest, most backward state in the USA had huge numbers of people suffocating because they were inept and corrupt in their pandemic management, I would certainly want my state and the feds to immediately do all they can to help those people. I’d be really angry if they didn’t.
That’s fine. I do not keep track of every detail about everyone here. And I don’t mean to cast any aspersions on anyone individually. I admit I’m responding viscerally and emotionally to the situation and not carefully researching every bit of data.
I believe India is working on a war-footing to address the oxygen shortage. But it is true that various Indian states did not do all they could to prepare at times like these. Regardless I do not think India needs international oxygen supply (yet) - I hear India is stepping up production massively.
The speed and virulence of the second-wave took everyone by surprise in India. If you see the charts, the rise in cases vs time is almost vertical.
I came across this: US refuses to release vaccine raw-materials for export to India. I do not know if this is the primary reason for the slowdown in India’s vaccine production capability, but if it is, shame on the US for literally giving the pandemic a free reign in India and dozens of African countries that India supplies vaccines to.
I’ve had some family members from time to time who were on O2. They all had machines in their homes that concentrated the O2 from out of the air. They didn’t need O2 manufactured in a plant and delivered to them.
I understand that there may be many households in India without electric service, but surely the hospitals have service. Machines could be given (or lent) to Indian hospitals. Why wouldn’t this alleviate their problem?
Home units are probably limited to 6 lpm oxygen delivery. Not sure what hospital patients need. maybe a doctor can weigh in on how much oxygen is needed.
A lot of hospitals are using high-flow oxygen therapy with COVID patients: that’s anywhere from 40 to 80 liters of heated and humidified oxygen per minute.
Home oxygen concentrators typically deliver in the range of 2 to 5 liters per minute, although a few more expensive models can go up to 10 or so; portable oxygen concentrators are typically measured in milliliters per minute. (See this company’s products for example.)
This is assuming that there is adequate supply of units and reliable electric power. Right now the medical services in India are overwhelmed. People are dying on the doorsteps of hospitals because there’s no room for them. Corpses are being stacked up in the streets.
I live in the US and have family back in India. Have had a few deaths in extended family and friends. All my family has had Covid with the new Covid variant, normal isolation measures that worked before did not work this time. Also people die too quickly from the time they have symptoms. It was 3 days for my friend’s dad.
@mandala - I work for a company that makes industrial gases worldwide, including India. There is a lot of internal discussion going on the situation.
@mandala - I am also normally a supporter of the central government, but blaming states in this situation for oxygen is not entirely right.
In India most of the Oxygen plants are located where metals are produced (Steel, Copper, …). This happens to be East and South of India. There is plenty of oxygen available but the cryogenic vessels needed to transport this oxygen is missing. Central government could have planned and put this infrastructure in place. New oxygen plants take one/few years to setup.
@Acsenray - the oxygen units mentioned above typically have their own power plants locally and don’t rely on the grid, which is kind of nice to have.
Can you expand on the political structure of India as it relates to Federal and State? Some of the articles I’ve read make it sound like the states are more autonomous in relation to control of medical care and distribution of supplies.
I’m no expert on the federal structure in India but from my conversations with relatives it’s not very strictly defined. I’ve been told that the system is federal in name but the Central government is very powerful. In fact the Central government has the power to declare President’s Rule in a State, essentially taking over the State government in times of emergency, suspending the state Legislative Assembly’s power and setting the state Chief Minister aside.
The present Central government in India is quite powerful, but States jealously guard their administrative independence. There have been numerous battles over the years between the Center and States on the issue of delegation of powers, and States do not take dictation from the Center. The provision of medical services is a State portfolio.
That would explain the variance in preparations between states. I expect going forward they will try and establish a centralized plan for emergencies such as this.