The Association of Medical Specialists (AMS) has warned of shortage in stocks of oxygen in Sri Lanka and appealed to authorities to take steps to avoid a crisis in Covid 19 treatment. 

“Oxygen and ICU care play a crucial role in critical cases and we should ensure a constant and uninterrupted availability of oxygen supplied beds if we are to avert disaster. Despite  being a financially stronger regional giant, India is facing immense hardships due to shortage of oxygen right now,”  AMS President Lakkumar Fernando was quoted by Daily Mirror as saying. 

He said the two companies that supply oxygen to health care facilities in the island nation should increase their production almost three fold.

 “However, the more important issue is the delivery of this oxygen to patient’s bedside. The best way to do this is to have piped oxygen distributed from a central liquid oxygen tank rather than using cylinders. Unfortunately, the whole country only has 28 such liquid oxygen tanks installed in hospitals.

“The sizes range from 3000 to 20000 litres, but there are only two 20,000 size tanks. With the current Covid being highly transmissible, taking patients to hospitals with larger tanks may not be an option a many of these hospitals mainly cater to non-covid patients," he said.

Fernando also said spreading the disease within a hospital could also result in disaster.

“With this the system will still have to largely depend on jumbo cylinders where each can carry 47 liquid litres that produce 7050 gas litres of oxygen,”

“Managing oxygen between hospitals and delivering to the individual patient will certainly need intelligent planning and extreme coordination of production, storage and efficient delivery. If such action is not taken in this crucial juncture, we will be another nation who has “planned to fail” as we have “failed to plan”, he stressed.