SC-appointed National Task Force discusses judicious oxygen use

The Supreme Court-appointed National Task Force on Oxygen held its first meeting on Sunday where the key suggestions discussed included oxygen use optimisation in hospital settings. A sub-panel has also been set up to immediately look at the issue of oxygen audits and on optimisation of the oxygen allocation process. While the sub-panel will closely review the supply and allocation system for liquid medical oxygen (LMO) and come up with recommendations on it soon, the Centre’s empowered group mechanism will continue to monitor the LMO supply system on a daily and hourly basis.

ET gathers that at the first meeting of the task force, at least three members from the medical fraternity said there was great scope and potential to “optimise” oxygen usage through best practices. They are also said to have explained how they reduced oxygen consumption by 15-20% in hospitals they were associated with. It was agreed that these best practices - including step-by-step measures to be adopted by the nursing and other health staff when attending to patients — should be shared with all health facilities to improve oxygen efficiency as an immediate step. Among steps shared were rationalising the oxygen flow as per need, keeping it off when patients may be using other facilities at the hospital including attending to phone calls.

It was suggested that healthcare staff be sensitised to check any wasteful consumption of LMO. While this has not been a usual training module, the need for judicious LMO usage has come to the fore starkly amid the ongoing crisis. It was also agreed that a lot of ‘preventive hospital admissions’ were being reported and this issue must be addressed as well to ensure oxygen optimisation. Hoarding of oxygen cylinders was another issue of concern.


Task force members are also learnt to have appreciated that a significant ramp up in oxygen supply had been effected by the Centre in a very short time even as the scale and the size of the second wave had been overwhelming. A seven-time increase in the supply of LMO has been effected by the Centre between the first weeks of March and May. As per government data, when India hit the peak case load in the first wave — with a daily new infection count of nearly a lakh — the LMO requirement was 3,000 tonnes and that was duly allocated.