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17 min ago 3 min read
Andhra Pradesh Health Minister Satya Yadav has ordered a comprehensive audit into liquid oxygen procurement costs and instructed officials to file a report by 15 October.
The audit, to be conducted by global health organisation PATH, follows a “stark mismatch” between demand and supply, according to Indian media.
Most PSA oxygen plants lie idle and the review will assess if they can be revived to reduce expenditure.
Officials attributed the breakdown to a lack of technical staff to monitor oxygen purity and a unified pipeline system for both ICU and general wards, reports stated.
The southeast state, among India’s top 10 by gross domestic product, has grappled with skyrocketing expenditures.
It faces critical healthcare needs centred on bridging rural-urban disparities in primary care infrastructure, reducing high out-of-pocket private health expenditures, addressing staff and specialist shortages in public facilities, and managing rising burdens of seasonal and non-communicable diseases.
India’s health policy on liquid medical oxygen procurement shifted from decentralised state purchasing to a centralised, digitised framework during the pandemic.
The World Bank advocates integrating energy-efficient air separation units and leverage industrial-medical public-private partnerships to divert industrial oxygen seamlessly during health emergencies.
It also advises scaling up digital tracking ecosystems like real-time oxygen monitoring dashboards to match regional supply with transparent demand forecasts.
Key market players include Inox Air Products, Linde India, Air Liquide India, and Reliance Industries, which supply bulk liquid oxygen via cryogenic road tankers to healthcare facilities.
Closing the medical oxygen gap in low and middle income countries will cost $34bn, according to research .
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