How Covid-19 Related Medical Oxygen Equipment is Useful To Increase Oxygen Access

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How Covid-19 Related Medical Oxygen Equipment is
Useful To Increase Oxygen Access
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Context
Decades of conflict and fragility have left
Somalia with huge challenges. Despite several
transitional governments, militant groups control
large swathes of the country, with the majority
of the population living under imminent security
threats. The country is also besieged by natural
disasters, drought and food insecurity. Sadly,
it is no surprise that Somalias health
indicators are among the worst in the world
with life expectancy at just 56 years. The
country has the highest under five mortality
rate, the second highest newborn mortality rate
and the sixth highest maternal mortality ratio
globally. More than 60,000 children die every
year, mostly from preventable diseases.
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Covid-19 Readiness Plan

As hospitals begin building new preparedness
plans and preparing for potential patient surges
due to the Covid-19 pandemic, medical oxygen and
gas manufacturers are feeling the pressure, and
engineers are working around the clock to develop
custom systems to fit the needs of each hospital.
MTS is working with 14 manufacturers to meet
these demands, and have already developed custom
medical oxygen systems for portable and modular
emergency shelters.
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Scaling up oxygen and the WHO Inventory Tool

• There is a severe shortage of medical oxygen in
  Somalia. Bedside oxygen concentrators are scarce,
  with too few oxygen generation plants for filling
  cylinders. Where oxygen does exist, it is very
  expensive with private suppliers charging
  around 100 USD for a large cylinder of oxygen.
  The one UN base producing oxygen cannot meet the
  demand for this scarce commodity.
• To plan for the surge in demand for oxygen during
  the pandemic, the WHO Somalia country office
  worked with the Federal Ministry of Health to
  design and implement a strategy to scale up
  oxygen.
• The first step was to gather data. Once the data
  was gathered the scale up of oxygen was tackled
  in two phases.

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Phase 1 Pulse Oximeters and Oxygen Concentrators

• The first phase focused on the procurement of
  pulse oximeters and oxygen concentrators to
  tackle immediate needs and to save more lives.
  Somalia received 76 oxygen concentrators to
  support case management monitoring equipment
  such as pulse-oximeters and medical consumables
  for oxygen delivery. These technologies were also
  a better fit with the skill sets of Somalia
  health workers, as just 23 of facilities
  surveyed had staff trained in mechanical
  ventilation and intubation.

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Phase 2 PSA Oxygen Generation Plants

• The second phase will focus on bolstering oxygen
  supply with Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA)
  plants, which were already under consideration
  prior to the COVID-19 response.
• Three plants were procured for two facilities
  in Mogadishu and one in Hargeisa with dedicated
  power generators (based on EU funding). To house
  these units, the WHO country office worked with
  UN engineers on innovative solutions to
  containerise this oxygen (using similar
  technology to the high-security containers that
  most UN staff lived in). These plug-and-play
  installations will serve three hospitals.

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Next Steps Long-term

• Oxygen is a smart investment. If we invest now
  it will help in the future. We will closely
  monitor and learn from this process and continue
  to replicate good practice to scale up PSA plants
  across the country.
• As one of the top med gas suppliers in the
  country, Medical Testing Solutions continues to
  outshine the competition. From our robust
  ePecurment platform for ordering, invoicing,
  billing and more MTS is your solution for medical
  gas supply. Through our vast network of
  customers, expanding across the United States,
  our pricing structure allows us to offer the
  lowest pricing guaranteed!

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