Galkot (Rasthriya Samachar Samiti): An oxygen plant will be established in the Dhaulagiri Hospital premises in Baglung. The hospital has stated that the construction of the plant was delayed for two months due to untimely budget.
As the hospital is being upgraded to a 200-bed state-level sub-provincial hospital, the plant is being constructed to reach it and send it to other hospitals and health posts in the district. The hospital is currently operating a plant that can accommodate only 25 beds.
During the second wave of corona, 47 critically ill patients were admitted to the hospital at one time and 120 cylinders of oxygen had to be brought daily from Pokhara due to lack of oxygen.
To make the district self-reliant in oxygen, the government had decided to set up an oxygen plant here to reach all the health institutions in the district and had allocated Rs. 30 million budget for that. The hospital’s accountant Jhalak Sharma said that an agreement has been reached with a company to provide Rs 24 million for the plant.
He said that the construction work of the infrastructure at a cost of Rs 2.3 million is now underway as Meditech Pvt. Ltd. will bring the oxygen plant to be imported from China.
Chairman of the hospital management committee KB Rana Magar informed that the construction has been started as a letter has been received from the federal government to complete the work by mid-September. The plant was brought into operation two years ago at a cost of Rs 9 million provided by the Ministry of Social Development of Gandaki.
The hospital currently has three intensive care units, two ventilators and 35 beds in isolation but lacks infrastructure and manpower. The intensive care unit has also been shut down due to a shortage of manpower.