Jharkhand: Pharmacist's 'Jugaad' With Oxygen Flow Meter Saves 60 Critical COVID-19 Patients

As the COVID-19 cases surged with the onset of the second wave in April, Gumla Sadar Hospital was facing a shortage of oxygen flow meters in spite of having a sufficient number of oxygen cylinders.

During that critical hour, Shyam Kumar, a pharmacist did some "jugaad" and saved the lives of 60 critical patients who were admitted to the hospital.

While fixing the oxygen flow, Shyam first fixed a unit by putting together the working parts of unused or rejected flow meters. Even then, he could not fix the measuring bottle used in the flow meters, as the bottles were not available in the market.

But he soon found a substitute and used a feeding bottle that he bought from the Maternity Treatment Centre.

"I tried fixing a feeding bottle while waiting for the measuring bottles used in the oxygen flow meters and that actually worked," said Shyam to The New Indian Express.

Though this model of the flow meter did not have appropriate units. However, facing an acute shortage of time and flow meters, the hospital authorities gave permission to try the model.

To everyone's surprise, the substitute flow meter model worked quite efficiently. Shyam then repeated the process for 20 more units and all of them worked absolutely fine.

This "jugaad" of Shyam was praised by the doctors, nurses, and other medical staff of the hospital.

Dr. Anand Oraon, the Deputy Superintendent of the hospital said that Shyam has saved at least 60 lives by applying his mind. "

"Shyam Kumar really did a commendable job by fixing feeding bottles in the oxygen flow meters and saved lives of several people during the peak of Covid-19," said a nurse in the hospital.

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