Helium Shortage Disrupts MRI Services in India, Raises Healthcare Costs!
A gas you rarely think about is disrupting MRI supply chains in India.Helium shortage issue, which may sound technical, is now becoming a real concern for hospitals, diagnostic centres, and patients across the country.
According to the recent reports, these disruptions are said to be due to the tensions in West Asia. This has also driven up costs in India, raising the risk of pricier scans and diagnostic delays.
A large portion of the world’s helium comes from countries like Qatar, where it is produced as a byproduct of natural gas processing. Qatar supplies a third of the world’s helium, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, but the nation had to halt production shortly after the war erupted three weeks ago. And India is heavily dependent on imports from Qatar for helium which is used to cool MRI magnets, hospitals and imaging centres are bracing for tighter supplies, even as inventories remain thin and global logistics turn volatile.
Since India depends heavily on imports for helium, it is directly impacted by these global changes. Moreover, with helium supplies inherently limited, several companies have moved to developing helium-free MRI machines over the years.
The Managing Director of Siemens Healthcare, Hariharan Subramanian said “There has been a limited impact on helium availability in view of the disruption due to the geopolitical situation. We have already introduced helium-free MRIs with proactive adoption of drycool technology. This helium-efficient approach reduces dependency on the gas and minimizes service disruptions”.
“Though helium prices are around $80 per cubic metre in certain markets, our company remains insulated as we manufacture helium-free imaging systems”, said Arjun Arunachalam, Founder of Bengaluru-based medtech startup Voxelgrids.
“Spot prices for helium have doubled since the crisis erupted and will probably rise further”, Kornbluth said.
“But spot trading only accounts for about 2% of the total market in normal times”, he said. Helium is a thinly traded commodity and is mostly sold through long-term contracts. “Still, contract prices could go up a lot,” Kornbluth said. “There’s lots of room for price increase if this is an extended outage.”
Kornbluth said “The shortage hasn’t hit yet, because helium containers that would have been filled when the conflict erupted at the start of March would have still taken several weeks to arrive in Asia”.
“Nobody’s run out of helium yet. But it’s a few weeks out when the shortage really hits.”
During the etching process, “you really want to maintain a constant temperature over the wafer. And in order to do that, you need to be able to draw heat away from the wafer that’s being processed,” said Stephan Feldgoise. “Helium is an excellent thermal conductor. And so chip fabs will blow helium over the back of the wafer in order to speed heat removal and keep heat removal consistent”, he said.
Under current semiconductor manufacturing processes, there’s no viable replacement for helium to cool wafers, said Jong-hwan Lee, a professor of semiconductor devices at South Korea’s Sangmyung University.
This is not just India’s problem. Helium is used in many industries, including semiconductors, aerospace, and scientific research. The shortage is affecting all these sectors, showing how dependent the world is on this limited resource.
However, the Helium shortage remains a challenge. If the supply situation does not improve soon, patients in India may continue to face higher costs and delays in diagnostic services.
