The Minister of Health Dr Frank Anthony yesterday announced that the authorities are working to set up an oxygen plant at the country’s infectious disease hospital.
This disclosure was made during Dr Anthony’s daily COVID-19 update where he stated that this move would reduce the amount of oxygen purchased for the facility. Previously the minister had stated that while the hospitals managing COVID-19 patients have not had any issues with oxygen supply, if cases were to increase exponentially, they could run out of oxygen.
During the update he stated that the ministry is working to improve the generation of oxygen for those patients in need at the Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara facility. “We are working to improve generation of oxygen on site and right now we are expecting to have an oxygen plant coming in shortly that we will be setting up at the Ocean View facility,” he said.
This, he mentioned, would see the hospital self-generating its own oxygen and thus reducing the amount of oxygen purchased on a daily basis from suppliers. He added that currently there are some 136 patients at the facility and of that number as of Wednesday, 81 required oxygen.
“…as you can imagine consumption of oxygen is taking a lot of resources from the ministry,” the health minister said.
Anthony on previous occasions has said that a consultant from the Pan American Health Organization had visited public hospitals and assessed their oxygen capabilities and how they can be improved. In early September he stated that all regional hospitals are currently preparing to add more oxygen capacity.
The Liliendaal facility previously used a 1,000-pound cylinder of oxygen which was later replaced with a bulk tank which was specially designed and brought to Guyana in order to increase the oxygen capacity at the hospital. It is replenished every 24 hours.
