National Oxygen Stewardship Program

Tags: National News

·Nodal Ministry - Union Health Ministry

·Launched by - Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare

• Aim - Repurpose, Re-orient and Upskill the existing manpower to ensure rational utilization and avoid any wastage of medical Oxygen and to be prepared for any upcoming Covid Surge without creating any undue stress on the health system.
• Identify and train at least one “Oxygen Steward” in each district across the country on Oxygen therapy and management

Detailed-

• Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar, Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, inaugurated the National Oxygen Stewardship Program of the Union Health Ministry, at AIIMS New Delhi.
• The initiative aims to train all healthcare workers engaged in Oxygen management and administration with the essential knowledge and skills to ensure rational utilization and avoid any wastage of medical Oxygen, especially in resource constraint times. 
• It envisages to identify and train at least one “Oxygen Steward” in each district across the country. These trained professionals would be responsible for leading the training on Oxygen therapy and management in their respective districts and also support audit of oxygen delivery and preparedness for a surge scenario.
• Thus this program aims to “repurpose, re-orient and upskill the existing manpower” in order to make sure that any unforseen incident arising due to the pandemic gets managed professionally without any undue stress on the systems.

Government’s efforts in ensuring increased oxygen availability-

• Government of India has sanctioned more than 1500 Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) oxygen generation plants of which 1463 have been commissioned. It includes 1225 PSA plants which have been installed and commissioned under PMCARES Fund in every district of the country.
• The States have also been asked to install PSA plants in public and private health facilities.
• The recently launched ‘Oxycare’ dashboard is another important initiative towards oxygen administration.

Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare - Mansukh L. Mandaviya

Union Health Secretary - Rajesh Bhushan