Hope as Kakamega’s new oxygen plant arrives in Mombasa

Covid-19 patients in the Lake region can now breathe a sigh of relief after the County Government of Kakamega on Wednesday imported a new 1000-litres-a-minute oxygen plant from France.

This comes after this week the Nation highlighted the plight of Covid-19 patients in the region, who are being turned away from the Kakamega County General Teaching and Referral Hospital as it grapples with an oxygen shortage brought about by medical referrals due to the surge of coronavirus infections in the neighbouring Kisumu County.

The hospital’s administrator, Dr Titus Mumia, on Tuesday explained that the situation has got worse, with the hospital full.

“Hospitals are not dealing with Covid-19 patients alone, we cannot close down our hospital to handle Covid patients alone because we also have other patients who need to be attended to,” said Dr Mumia.

New plant

The order for the new plant was put in place more than a week ago.

Speaking to the Nation.Africa in an exclusive interview on Wednesday, Kakamega Governor Wycliffe Oparanya disclosed that the new plant will be installed in a week’s time.

“We have purchased a new oxygen plant … at a cost of 100 million shillings and at the moment, it is being cleared at the port in Mombasa. This will go a long way in ensuring that we have enough medical oxygen supply for even non Covid-19 patients and post pandemic. It will be up and running after it is delivered to us,” the governor explained.

On Monday, eight nurses working at the hospital’s Covid-19 casualty and isolation units said the gas cylinders it has were not helping much.

“We only have like two oxygen sources and then in the isolation unit we have the oxygen system fitted to the wall. This means at any given point they can all run out. We get our gas cylinders from Hewa Tele in Siaya and their system broke down a few weeks ago, which made things more difficult,” said a nurse who sought anonymity.

Mr Martin Nandwa, the biomedical engineer at the hospital, acknowledged the need for oxygen at the hospital due to the ever rising Covid-19 cases and referrals from Nyanza.

Low saturation levels

“We have a lot of patients coming in and most of them are having very low saturation levels that need a very high flow supply of oxygen to them,” he said, adding that the hospital has a 6-bed ICU for Covid-19 patients and all of them are on oxygen.

“We have 10 (Covid-19) patients who are withdrawing close to 200 litres per minute from the same plant, against a production capacity of 300 litres per minute, and remember the plant serves other non-Covid units such as the theatres and the maternal-newborn unit. 

“This means that whatever we are currently experiencing is due to the fact that the plant is strained in terms of need against production, because our need is now way above 500 litres per minute,” he said.

With a new plant in sight, the engineer is hopeful that things will be better in the management of Covid-19. 

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