All government facilities in Jharkhand, which have pressure swing adsorption (PSA) plants to generate medical oxygen, conducted mock drills on Tuesday in line with the Union health ministry advisory.

Alok Trivedi, additional health secretary of Jharkhand, informed that mock drills were successfully carried out at all the 122 PSA oxygen-generating plants in the state.

“We have not received any report from the 24 districts so far about the malfunction of the PSA plants. Most of the PSA plants are situated in sadar hospitals, community health centres, sub-divisional hospitals and government medical colleges. They were activated as part of the mock drill on Tuesday to check preparedness to handle Covid cases in hospitals,” said Trivedi.

The mock drills had ambulances rushing in with patients at these facilities who were taken for screening and underwent medical procedures simulating Covid cases.

Chief minister Hemant Soren reviewed the health department’s preparation for containing the spread of new omicron variant BF.7 in Ranchi on Monday evening and instructed the officials to make concrete arrangements for the availability of hospitals, oxygen-supported beds, medicines and medical oxygen to prevent chaotic situations witnessed during the second wave of Covid. Soren cautioned officials that there might be an increase in the number of Covid cases, especially of the omicron variants in the coming days and asked them to keep the medical system on alert.

Officials informed that arrangements had been made to test samples of Covid-19 suspects in government and private laboratories through RT-PCR and RAT kits.

“There are 297 True Nat machines, installed in the community health centres of all the districts in the state. In total, 10,68,877 rapid antigen kits and 3,59,933 BTM kits are available. Already eight RTPCR labs are operational in the state (RIMS, MGM, PMCH, Phulo Jhano Medical College Dumka, Medininagar Medical College Palamu, Shaheed Nirmal Mahto Medical College Dhanbad, Sheikh Bhikhari Medical College Hazaribagh, Itki, District Virology Lab Sahebganj),” said a release issued by the health department.

RT-PCR labs have been established in 12 districts (Garhwa, Latehar, Koderma, Giridih, Khunti, Simdega, Lohardaga, Chatra, Pakur, Jamtara, Ramgarh and Seraikela-Kharsawan), which after ICMR certification will be activated in January next year.

The establishment of RTPCR labs in seven other districts (Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Chaibasa, Bokaro, Deoghar, Gumla and Godda) has also been completed by the state government through Prejha Foundation which will be activated after ICMR certification in the New Year.

“A total of 19,535 beds are available in government institutions for the treatment of Covid-19 patients. Sufficient amount of oxygen is available in the state and a total of 11 Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) plants have been made functional in government (five) and private (six) hospitals of the state,” the release claimed.