No crisis of medical oxygen in WB: Govt official

Amid growing concern over the shortage of life-saving oxygen, the West Bengal government stated that there is no crisis of medical oxygen in the state. This comes after a review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the current spike in COVID-19 cases.

Kolkata:There is no crisis of medical oxygen in West Bengal and the state has adequate stock of the life-saving gas, a senior state government official said after a review meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on the current spike in COVID-19 cases.

There is "no question of any crisis in oxygen" at the moment as the state has a daily average production of 457 MT of gas whereas the requirement is close to 223 MT per day, the official said.

"There is no crisis of medical oxygen in West Bengal. We have adequate storage of the gas. So there is no question of any crisis," he told the media

The state is also planning to start supplying oxygen through the pipeline to as many as 41 hospitals by May 15 primarily treating COVID-19 patients, he said.

The review meeting discussed that there are a total of 20,000 beds in the private and state-run clinical establishments to treat corona patients in the state, the official said.

Banerjee held the review meeting at the state secretariat after the state Election Commission gave her the nod for it.

Chief secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay, home secretary HK Dwidevi and health secretary NS Nigam were present at the meeting, official sources said.

(With inputs from PTI)