German ambassador Walter J Lindner on Wednesday inaugurated the oxygen plant in Delhi's Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel DRDO Covid Hospital and said that the coronavirus can be defeated with the combined effort of India, Germany and other countries.
Talking to ANI, Lindner said:"It is an important day because five days after the first transport plane came with parts of the oxygen production plant now we open it. Now it will save lives."
"For two weeks, foreign aid is coming in and there is some effect of it. The virus has at least in Delhi reached a plateau level and now we have to work that it is going down. That we have more hospital beds available more oxygen beds available. With the combined efforts of the Indian, European, German and international side we should be able to make it. Together we can win and that's where we are," he said.
"We have already given ventilators, medicine. It is what friends in need can expect from other friends. India would do the same for us as we do it for India. I am just returning this favour which India has done to the world which was helping us a lot in the pandemic so far. We have already given ventilators, medicines," he added.
The plant is expected to service Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) operated Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Covid Hospital.
Apart from meeting the requirements of the hospital, the plant can supply oxygen to other hospitals in need as this plant also has a facility for refilling oxygen cylinders.
Germany has earlier supplied ventilators that have been distributed to three hospitals. The oxygen plant is being supervised by the Ministry of External Affairs.
German Armed Forces Continent leader for the installation of the oxygen plant, Colonel Juergen Thym, along with his team of experts helped set up the oxygen plant at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel COVID hospital.
"We have six facilities in Germany and one of that is brought to India last week. Before we could instal it we had to work on infrastructure like a concrete plate and then we took our material, which came delivered by German Air Force. We started to build last Saturday and two days later we started with first test run for oxygen production," he said.
"This system is able to produce 4,00,000 litres, which is a lot of amount of oxygen and this can be produced every day seven days a week with no problem. We fill it in cylinders and send cylinders to patients," said Colonel Thym on the oxygen plant facility.
He also added that they are privileged and honoured to be able to support India since it has supported other countries a lot at the beginning of the pandemic.
The team of 12 German paramedics from the German Armed Forces Sanitary Command had set up the machine. They are also training Indian experts to operate the machine smoothly.
( With inputs from ANI )
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