THE provincial government of Bulacan allocated P100 million for the construction of a medical oxygen plant in the province.
Bulacan Provincial Engineer Glenn Reyes explained that the oxygen plant will be built at the back of the Bulacan Medical Center (BMC) next to the newly constructed Bulacan Provincial Blood Center building.
According to Reyes, the oxygen plant will be built on a 412.96 square meter property designed to produce 424 cylinders or medical oxygen tanks per day.
It was learned that before the pandemic, the consumption of medical oxygen in BMC was only 120 cylinders per day.
At the height of the pandemic, BMC chief Dra. Hjordis Marushka Celis, said the hospital’s consumption shot up to two thousand tanks per day.
She said each tank lasts up to two to three hours only.
Currently, BMC has 200 beds that are now exclusively for patients with COVID-19.
Celis added that it is also possible that the BMC’s consumption will reach up to 4,000 cylinders daily as the hospital is set to add another 100 beds.
The Provincial Engineer’s Office is looking at completing the medical oxygen plant project by early 2022, with its operation to be managed by BMC.
While waiting for the project’s completion, Bulacan Governor Daniel Fernando already requested the national government for a thousand more tanks of medical oxygen to fill the needs of BMC as the health crisis caused by the pandemic continues.