SAIL To Set Up 2500 Extra Beds At Odisha’s Rourkela & 4 Other Plants Using Gaseous Oxygen

New Delhi: Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) will set up jumbo medical facilities of about 2500 beds with the support of gaseous oxygen (GOX) for treatment of COVID patients.

These are in addition to the existing facilities at SAIL’s five integrated steel plants at Bhilai (Chattisgarh), Bokaro (Jharkhand), Rourkela (Odisha), Durgapur and Burnpur (West Bengal).

The new facilities, in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call and under the guidance of Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Steel Dharmendra Pradhan, are being planned outside the hospitals.

They will get oxygen support through a dedicated gas line drawn directly from the steel plants, instead of extracting gaseous oxygen from liquid medical oxygen as is being done in the SAIL hospitals currently.

The use of gaseous oxygen directly will provide an additional source of oxygen. Demand for liquid medical oxygen is already very high.

The 2500 new beds will be developed in a phased manner in collaboration with the respective state governments.

There are currently about 3000 beds in the five SAIL hospitals, of which 45% are being used for COVID patients.