Donors

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the following organizations, their donors, and their employees for stepping up and supporting HBS Hospital with this vital equipment

• Helping Hands for Relief and Development, USA
• Juniper Networks
• NASIM Foundation, USA
• Taj and Zakir Syed Foundation

Need

HBS Hospital has ~100 oxygenated beds, including 14 in the ICU and 40 in the Dialysis Center. During the 2nd wave of COVID in Apr-Jun 2021, India faced a huge crisis of Oxygen availability. Even though in many instances hospital beds were there, there was no Oxygen available. This exacerbated the crisis and led to the loss of many lives across the country. At HBS Hospital, we were using Liquid Oxygen. At the peak of the crisis, we were using 15-16 cylinders of 200L liquid oxygen each day. Further, due to shortages, the prices shot up by nearly 5 times, and in many cases, was not even available. There were huge challenges in obtaining and securing the supply of oxygen. The hospital was constrained from expanding and taking in more patients purely due to this oxygen constraint.

Also, due to the crisis faced during the 2nd wave, and as per the GO JDMK/KPME/13/2021-22 dated 1-Jun-2021 issued by the Commissionerate of Health and Family Welfare Services, the Government of Karnataka has made it mandatory now for all Private hospitals to put up PSA plants within a time frame of 4 months.

Being a not-for-profit charitable hospital, any savings from high cost of purchase of oxygen can be of significant benefit and the savings will be passed through to the patients.

Goals and Objectives of the HBS Oxygen Generating Plant:

• To make HBS Hospital self-sufficient in terms of its Oxygen requirement by operating an Oxygen Generating Plant of 100 NM3 capacity
• To reduce the cost of healthcare by decreasing the burden of Oxygen charges and pass on the benefit to all patients at HBS due to installation of the generating plant
• To conserve and promote renewable source of Oxygen that is being generated and available at the site of consumption, thereby reducing the overall cost, time and efforts in the sourcing, manufacture and transport of other current sources of Oxygen

About the Plant

The PSA Oxygen Generator is an air separation unit which is based on molecular sieves selective adsorption of nitrogen from air and can continuously generate gas oxygen with a purity 90-95% at ambient temperature. This PSA Oxygen Generating System is composed of Compressed Air System, Compressed Air Purification System, PSA Oxygen Making System, Oxygen Compressing System and oxygen filling system.

Procurement, Installation and Commissioning

HBS formed a procurement team for the plant. Engagement of technical experts Mr. Hithayathulla, Process expert Mr. Md. Ummer, and Commercial expert Mr. Sheik Ahmed was done as part of the process. Technical specifications were drawn up and proposals were called.

10 quotations for the PSA Oxygen Generator plant of capacity 50 to 60 NM3 were procured by a procurement team set up by HBS Hospital. Out of these 10, after a shortlisting, meetings and assessment process, the project was awarded to Aircomp International

The plant was inaugurated in January 2022 and has been operational since then. Each month, on an average, 50 to 60 patients get admitted in the HBS ICU. More than 90% of these are on Oxygen support. The efforts of the donors, the contractor and the hospital have resulted in the benefit to more than 700 patients in a period of one year.