By A Staff Reporter
Lalitpur, Jan. 16: A new oxygen plant has come into service at Patan Hospital, Lalitpur.
The plant, installed last year at a cost of Rs. 30 million provided by the Government of Nepal and the Lalitpur Metrpolitan City (LMC), began operation from Friday. The plant had been under testing since August.

Inaugurating the plant, Lalitpur Mayor Chiribabu Maharjan hoped that the plant would help in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
Maharjan lauded Patan Hospital’s work during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in the country and informed that he helped the hospital install a new oxygen plant after he learnt that the old one was broken.

“On one occasion, when I came to the hospital to encourage the staff and praise their work, I found out that the oxygen plant here was broken. So, I initiated talks to help replace it,” Maharjan said.
Of the Rs. 30 million spent to install the new plant, Rs. 10 million was provided by the LMC last February.

Claiming that the City would extend any help necessary to the hospital, Maharjan said, “The hospital also needed a mercury house but the oxygen plant was more necessary so we focused our attention on that. We will work to provide the mercury house when we win the next election.”

The newly operational oxygen plant has the capacity to produce enough oxygen to fill 220 50-litre cylinders per day. Professor Dr. Ravi Shakya, director of Patan Hospital, said that the plant would help prevent the dire oxygen shortage experience by the hospital during the second wave of the pandemic.