In order to bridge the oxygen application deficit gap among health practitioners and the fallout of some challenges faced by the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. The federal government in conjunction with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund( UNICEF) to train medical professionals on the right application and handling of oxygen as a drug.
The title for this initiative is called ‘Dissemination of the National Medical Oxygen Document for North-East states’. During this 3 days workshop the Commissioner for Health, Gombe State, Dr Habu Dahiru, thanked the organisers for the programme. He said “You know that oxygen is a drug and an essential drug that will be used in the areas of emergency from the labour room to the paediatric ward, theatre.
“Therefore, we want to set up the mechanism where oxygen will be made available to all facilities. Everyone should have easy access to oxygen.
“We recommended strongly that when they want to cite such projects, they should come and sit with state officers to look at locations that can be easily accessed,”
Also speaking at the event the The representative of the Federal Ministry of Health, Oxygen Desk, Hospital Services, Bishara Emmanuel, stated that the team was in the state for a review of the 2023-2027 edition of the oxygen dissemination strategy.
In his words he said “People are dying because of hypoxemia cases. People are dying from lack of oxygen. Oxygen is very limited across the country, and apart from that, we want our health workers to be informed on how to administer oxygen and where to get oxygen. We want them to be familiar with who is supposed to provide the oxygen.
“We have about 56 people participating in this workshop but at the moment we have over 70,” he said.
In addition he said, “Because after the COVID-19 pandemic, we realised there was so much gap in the ecosystem and people were finding it difficult to get oxygen.
“Therefore, the government started by establishing 38 oxygen plants across the country in collaboration with the global fund, FG procured an additional 12 oxygen plants. We have the approval for the 63 oxygen plants across each geopolitical zone.
“We have started the training of biomedical engineers across the country because we realise there are few biomedical engineers in the country. We have also embarked on the piping of oxygen across the 44 tertiary federal hospitals.”
Another notable figure at the event, a representative of UNICEF, Bauchi field office, Dr Jibril Mohammed, also had comments to made at about the event he said “It’s been developed by the Federal Ministry of Health and partners of which UNICEF is an active partner. We were involved in the development of this strategic document. The essence of the document is to give guidance on how medical oxygen will be generated as well as how it will be utilised. The essence is to make sure oxygen is available as a clinical commodity like drugs to ensure that lives are saved, especially in paediatrics, where we used to lose babies in the maternity and surgical departments.
“UNICEF felt it should be a partner by supporting the Federal Ministry of Health, including other partners to make sure that oxygen is provided.”
He also said “The maintenance, storage and transportation, has to be in accordance with safety guidelines. We have engineers who handle the plants because if these plants are manhandled, it will be catastrophic because the kind of fire that will engulf the place is more than the cooking gas.”
Present at the event also, the State Coordinator, World Health Organisation, Gombe State Office, Dr Umar Ismail, also spoke about the event.
According to him they are fully in support of the movement, he said, “We are fully involved, supporting the government right from the planning stage. Was fully involved in building the 2017 – 2022 oxygen strategy in the country.
“The review of 2022-2027; the current one being disseminated today is a result of some of the lessons learnt from COVID-19, whereby patients that needed oxygen were dying due to lack of oxygen.
Additionally; he said “For Gombe State, the FG is rolling out the strategy and looking at how states can adopt the strategy to ensure that all health facilities including private health facilities have access to oxygen when patients need it.”