The liquid oxygen plant at RIMS and (above) a patient on respiratory support in Ranchi on Monday. (Hardeep Singh)

Ranchi, July 25: The centralised oxygen plant that ensures 24/7 uninterrupted respiratory support to ailing patients at Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) has run out of breath, legally.

The lone oxygen plant installed next to the premier hospital’s kitchen, on the RIMS administrative building’s backyard, is functioning without a licence from the Centre for almost 16 months.

Any initiative, medical or otherwise, dealing with explosives has to get a permit from Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organisation under Union ministry of commerce and industry. The issued licence is valid for two years, after which it must be renewed.

According to sources, the licence for the oxygen plant at RIMS expired on March 31, 2010. Sixteen months on, hospital authorities are blasé, while officials of the operating agency of the plant are claiming that the process is underway. However, they cannot furnish any proof.

The director of RIMS, Tulsi Mahto, when contacted, said: “Licence isn’t a big issue. The plant is working fine. I can say something definitive only after looking into the files concerned.”

But, if officials of Praxair, the agency responsible for the plant’s running and maintenance, are to be believed, they fulfilled formalities for renewal of licence “long time ago”, but didn’t specify the date.

“I have checked the status of the application online. I learnt it has been approved. Yes, we haven’t yet received the hardcopy of the renewed licence. But it will come soon,” claimed Praxair’s senior official, S. Majumdar.

“We work professionally. Everything is alright with the plant,” he stressed.

Built at a cost of Rs 4.5 crore, the centralised oxygen unit at RIMS came up in November 2008 during the tenure of former director N.K. Agarwal, with the aim of eliminating the use of manual gas cylinders at the hospital for their many allied hassles.

In the oxygen plant, 10kl of liquid gas comes from Haldia in Bengal at a time. The plant is connected to all the wards in the hospital through a network of pipes through which liquid oxygen reaches is transported. It reaches patients in gaseous form as it is transferred through the vaporiser channel. The entire system simulates piped water supply network from a centralised reservoir.

It has simplified the lives of doctors and nurses immensely. “At the touch of a button, the system provides uninterrupted oxygen to patients, a life-saver in many cases. It had eliminated hourly inventory management. Earlier, nurses didn’t know whether gas was available in the cylinder as there weren’t any markers. Scarcity was huge,” said a nurse at medicine ICU wing.