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Buikwe, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The installation of an oxygen generator at Kawolo Hospital has resulted in a significant decrease in the cost of transporting and refilling oxygen cylinders. Eight months ago, the government installed the first oxygen generator at Kawolo Hospital to replace oxygen cylinders for emergency medical care.
The generator, donated by Atlantis Consults Company Limited, captures air from the hospital environment, compresses it, and separates the gases before supplying 93 percent high-purity oxygen to emergency departments for patient use. One oxygen generator is equivalent to 14 oxygen cylinders. Unlike cylinders, this new South Korean technology is portable in size, equivalent to a refrigerator, and has a lifespan of 15 years, making it secure against explosions.
Kawolo Medical Superintendent, Dr. Joshour Kiberu, reports a reduction in expenditure on oxygen since the hospital received the oxygen generator. He notes that the hospital used to use 40 cylinders weekly, which required them to hire a vehicle at Shillings 350,000 to transport and refill them. Each cylinder could also cost less than Shillings 40,000 to refill.
Lately, the refilling cycle of cylinders has been reduced from four times every month to just one. Dr. Kiberu reveals that cylinders only work in one of the emergency wings where there are no oxygen pipes, but they keep their cylinders refilled in case of a power outage or if the oxygen generator is unable to perform.
The oxygen generator only functions when it is connected to power. The government provided a standby power generator to support it during load shedding, but the facility sometimes runs out of fuel. The oxygen generator provides oxygen to the maternity, theater, and pediatric wards.
Abdallah Twaha Matovu, the Managing Director of Atlantis Consults Company Limited, the firm that deals in medical appliances, says the machine costs Shillings 113M. According to him, it only requires periodic repairs and cleaning every three months, unlike a 70-kilogram cylinder, which lasts for about two and a half hours at a flow rate of 45 liters per minute for a critically ill patient.
The biomedical engineer at Kawolo, Aaron Lubandi, says the new technology has saved them from carrying and rolling heavy cylinders from refilling centers to facility wards. Residents and clients attending Kawolo Hospital for services say cries about the lack of oxygen at the facility are lately not heard of. Oxygen was mainly in high demand during the previous two years of the COVID-19 scare.
Tadeo Byabagambi, the biomedical engineer at the Ministry of Health, says they are still monitoring its efficiency before asking the government to avail money to extend similar machines to other hospitals with already connected oxygen pipes in the country.
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