At the height of the Coid-19 pandemi, millions of people in the poor peoples died literally breath for breath, even in hospitals. What they missed was medical oxygen, which is in the absence of most of the world.
On Monday, the panel of a specialist posted a comprehensive report on the lack. Each year, it is said that more than 370 million people around the world need oxygen as part of their medical care, but less than 1 out of 3 receives it, threatening the health and life of those who do not. Access to safe and affordable medical oxygen is particularly limited in low and medium -sized countries.
“The need is very urgent,” said Dr. Hamish Graham, a pediatrician and the leading author of the report. “We know that more epidemics are coming, and in the next 15 to 20 years there will be another pandemic, probably like a covid.”
The report, published in Lancet Global Health, comes only a few weeks after Trump’s administration frozen foreign assistance programs, including some that could improve oxygen access.
Increasing the availability of medical oxygen would require an investment of about $ 6.8 billion, the report said. “Within the current climate, it will obviously become a little more challenge,” said Carina King, an epidemiologist of an infectious disease from the Caroline Institute and the leading author of the report.
However, she said, government and financing organizations should prioritize medical oxygen for its importance in healthcare. People of all ages may need oxygen for pneumonia and other respiratory conditions, for severe infections, including malaria and sepsis, for surgery and chronic lung states.
“We do not break out oxygen against other priorities, but that it should be installed in all these programs and within these priorities,” said Dr. King. “It’s completely fundamental to the functional health system.”
Medical oxygen has been used for over 100 years, often for the treatment of patients with pneumonia. However, this was added to the list of essential drugs of the World Health Organization in 2017.
At the beginning of the Coid-19 pandemic, each breath is breathtaking, the coalition of more than 50 organizations has encouraged an increased approach to medical oxygen. By the end of 2022, an emergency working group mobilized more than $ 1 billion in value from oxygen medical equipment and stock in more than 100 countries.
One country that has invested significant investment in the improvement of oxygen is Nigeria, which has taken steps in that direction before Coid.
Nigeria has set up about 20 profitable plants to create oxygen on the spot for hospitals, and explores plants with liquid oxygen that can supply large parts of urban areas, said Dr. Muhammad Ali Pate, Minister of Health and Social Welfare in the country.
Many hospitals do not have systems that can reliably deliver oxygen, “so it is a type of design and inherited problem we have to deal with,” he said. “There are more.”
Modification of hospital oxygen delivery systems can represent engineering and market problems, and oxygen delivery requires infrastructure that can transport heavy oxygen tanks at long distance.
Even after oxygen supply is provided, oxygen supply equipment directly to patients must be routinely maintained and cleaned, and the spare parts may take several months. Health workers must be trained to effectively use equipment.
“We have seen so many investment in the equipment, but very little investment in how to sustain the operationalize that equipment,” said Dr. King.
Health institutions also require that the pulse oximeters examine and monitor the levels of oxygen in the blood during treatment. However, in low and medium -income countries, the pulse oxymetry is used in less than 1 in 5 patients of general hospitals, and almost never used in primary health care institutions, the report states.
Panel included testimonies of patients, families and health workers who fought with oxygen deficiency. In Sierra Leone, before the Coid-19 pandemia, only one public hospital across the country had a functional oxygen plant, resulting in thousands of death cases that can be avoided. In Pakistan, a man with a chronic condition of the lungs said he remained indoors and avoided the stairs to prevent his lungs from cracking under voltage. He had to borrow money from friends and family to pay the cost of treatment of $ 18,000 at home.
In Ethiopia, the doctor was forced to take away oxygen from one patient to treat another who was desperately ill. “It was very hearty trying to decide who lives and who dies,” he said.
