Monrovia – Late one evening, 44-year-old Irene Mabande’s four-year-old daughter Emerald suffered a extreme bronchial asthma assault at house 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 remembers. “Within the hospital, they don’t have a nebulizer for asthmatic sufferers, so the one factor that might 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 important medical interventions and helps to make sure efficient responses to a variety of well being challenges. Nevertheless, an absence 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 major hole in our response to the pandemic,” says Dr Adolfos T. Yeaih, Director of Emergency Response Companies at Liberia’s Ministry of Well being. “And the little oxygen that we may purchase from business sources didn’t have the type of purity that was required to deal with individuals 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 stress swing adsorption (PSA) oxygen crops. 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 turbines for the brand new crops, provided diesel gasoline for his or her operation, and facilitated the connection of the Star Base plant to the nationwide grid to additional improve its reliability.
These crops had been established to enrich three pre-existing on-site medical oxygen crops in Liberia, solely certainly one of which provides oxygen to different well being services. In distinction, the brand new crops distribute oxygen cylinders to well being services throughout 5 counties, serving a inhabitants of roughly 2.3 million individuals. From April 2023 to June 2024, they produced and distributed a complete of 4551 cylinders, delivering essential assist to over 2000 critically ailing sufferers.
Mabande’s daughter was one of many beneficiaries of this necessary intervention, which has seen the share of well being centres and hospitals offering medical oxygen nationwide enhance from 51% in 2021 to 67% in 2023. “As quickly as they established the oxygen, she began taking breaths, and he or she was stabilized,” Mabande says. “She got here again.”
Sylvester Tolgai is a nurse anaesthetist at Liberia Authorities Hospital, the place till just lately this type of optimistic end result was all too typically not the case. “Oxygen provide was an actual drawback inside this hospital,” he says. “The institution of the oxygen plant has been an excellent 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 secure operation and upkeep of the brand new oxygen crops, whereas a devoted coaching centre was established on the Star Base plant for ongoing capability constructing.
The roadmap additionally seeks to restore injury to current PSA crops, enhance emergency preparedness and demanding care supply, set up medical fuel 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 direction of guaranteeing 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 dying and the nation have to 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 exterior her house. Final yr, Princess was admitted to Liberia Authorities Hospital with extreme bacterial an infection. “With out the oxygen, she wouldn’t be right here at this time,” Morris says. “I’m so grateful.”