Monrovia – Late one evening, 44-year-old Irene Mabande’s four-year-old daughter Emerald suffered a extreme bronchial asthma assault at residence in Tubmanburg, the capital of Bomi County within the northwest of Liberia. “She was striving for air. She couldn’t breathe on her personal,” Mabande recollects. “Within the hospital, they don’t have a nebulizer for asthmatic sufferers, so the one factor that would convey her again was oxygen.”
Dependable entry to medical oxygen is an important part of a strong well being system, a life-saving important medication that helps crucial medical interventions and helps to make sure efficient responses to a variety of well being challenges. Nonetheless, a scarcity of uninterrupted entry to oxygen in Liberia has contributed to preventable deaths, an issue amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for medical oxygen surpassed the nation’s capability.
“This was a big hole in our response to the pandemic,” says Dr Adolfos T. Yeaih, Director of Emergency Response Providers at Liberia’s Ministry of Well being. “And the little oxygen that we might purchase from business sources didn’t have the form of purity that was required to deal with folks adequately.”
In a bid to deal with this deficit, in 2022, native well being authorities, with funding from the European Union, USAID and the German authorities, and assist from World Well being Group (WHO), established two new state-of-the-art strain swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen vegetation. One plant is on the Star Base on Bushrod Island in Monrovia, and the opposite at Liberia Authorities Hospital in Bomi County.
Recognizing the significance of uninterrupted energy for enough, constant oxygen manufacturing, WHO additionally procured and put in backup mills for the brand new vegetation, equipped diesel gas for his or her operation, and facilitated the connection of the Star Base plant to the nationwide grid to additional improve its reliability.
These vegetation have been established to enhance three pre-existing on-site medical oxygen vegetation in Liberia, solely one in every of which provides oxygen to different well being amenities. In distinction, the brand new vegetation distribute oxygen cylinders to well being amenities throughout 5 counties, serving a inhabitants of roughly 2.3 million folks. From April 2023 to June 2024, they produced and distributed a complete of 4551 cylinders, delivering essential assist to over 2000 critically sick sufferers.
Mabande’s daughter was one of many beneficiaries of this vital intervention, which has seen the proportion of well being centres and hospitals offering medical oxygen nationwide improve from 51% in 2021 to 67% in 2023. “As quickly as they established the oxygen, she began taking breaths, and she or he was stabilized,” Mabande says. “She got here again.”
Sylvester Tolgai is a nurse anaesthetist at Liberia Authorities Hospital, the place till not too long ago this sort of optimistic end result was all too usually not the case. “Oxygen provide was an actual downside inside this hospital,” he says. “The institution of the oxygen plant has been an amazing assist for us. It has helped us to scale back the mortality charge on the hospital. It’s a actually good initiative for us and our sufferers.”
As a part of a complete roadmap to maintain scaling up entry to medical oxygen throughout all 15 of Liberia’s counties, WHO has additionally supported the Ministry of Well being in coaching over 200 clinicians on oxygen remedy. Twenty biomedical engineering technicians have additionally gained experience within the protected operation and upkeep of the brand new oxygen vegetation, whereas a devoted coaching centre was established on the Star Base plant for ongoing capability constructing.
The roadmap additionally seeks to restore harm to present PSA vegetation, enhance emergency preparedness and important care supply, set up medical gasoline piping in all main referral hospitals throughout Liberia, and equip ambulances with enough oxygen provide and superior life assist options.
“Liberia has made vital strides in the direction of making certain entry to medical grade oxygen for all,” says Dr Clement Peter, WHO Consultant in Liberia. “As COVID-19 highlighted, medical oxygen might be the distinction between life and loss of life and the nation should be recommended for making this a precedence in its pursuit of common well being protection.”
Again in Tubmanburg, 39-year-old Hawa Morris performs together with her 18-month-old daughter Princess outdoors her residence. Final yr, Princess was admitted to Liberia Authorities Hospital with extreme bacterial an infection. “With out the oxygen, she wouldn’t be right here immediately,” Morris says. “I’m so grateful.”