Former Congress leader and ex-Chevella MP Konda Vishweshwar Reddy, who had recently made headlines after he
resigned from the party, today said that he would donate an oxygen concentrator to help the needy Covid-19 patients in the state access medical oxygen.
In a video statement on his decision, he said that the existing Chinese concentrators being used at some healthcare facilities were not working properly, and claimed that the concentrator being donated by him would separate nitrogen from the air and produce oxygen with a 98% purity level.
Elaborating further, the former MP stated, "The oxygen concentrator I will be donating has been designed in Japan. It runs on electricity and can work for 30 days in a row. It will not require refills for a year. I will be donating the concentrator to the Yagna Foundation. My cousin has already donated two concentrators to the foundation. I hope that these contributions will play some part in assuaging the medical oxygen supply crunch in the state."
Reddy added that people in Telangana as well in the rest of the country were facing many problems due to the shortage of medical oxygen. He also highlighted the fact that the paucity of beds in hospitals was becoming a major problem and had prompted him to try and set up a 20-bed facility in the Vikarabad and Chevella areas.
Many other steps have also been taken to address the catastrophic oxygen shortage in Telangana - the Oxygen Express trains, being run by the South Central Railways, have been ferrying oxygen tankers into the state in a hassle-free and fast manner.
Under the initiative, road tankers are transported by the railways through the roll-on, roll-off (RO-RO) freight services. The trains are operated at the request of the state government. While the state must itself provide the tankers for the oxygen, the SCR takes on the responsibility of bringing back the refilled tankers to the requisitioning state in the fastest and feasible way.
So far, two Oxygen Express trains from Secunderabad, the first with
five empty tankers and the second with
four, were sent to Odisha to be refilled. Both trains have successfully transported back the filled oxygen tankers to the state.