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Health minister blames uneven factory distribution for oxygen shortage
The health minister says that most oxygen producers are located in West Java and East Java, which presented logistical difficulties in distributing the gas to hospitals located elsewhere on Java.
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Workers stand among oxygen cylinders on July 6, 2021 at a factory in Jakarta. Indonesia has been experiencing an oxygen shortage amid the nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases that saw a record-breaking 47,899 new cases on July 13. (Reuters/Ajeng Dinar Ulfiana)
H
ealth Minister Budi Gunadi Sadikin has pointed to the uneven distribution of oxygen manufacturing facilities as the main cause of the recent oxygen shortage that had affected COVID-19 patients and hospitals in several provinces across Java.
The minister said most oxygen manufacturing facilities were located in West Java and East Java, while Central Java was home to 390 hospitals and Yogyakarta had 56 hospitals.
The condition had hindered logistics and distribution, he said, as special freight trucks were needed to transport medical oxygen from West Java and East Java to Central Java and Yogyakarta.
Budi added that national demand for medical oxygen had soared from 400 tons to 2,000 tons per day.
“Our current capacity can produce only around 1,700 tons of [medical] oxygen a day,” Budi told a meeting on Tuesday with House of Representatives Commission IX, which oversees health.
Read also: Indonesia reports record COVID-19 cases on Tuesday, orders oxygen supplies
