Teesha
Kenya is witnessing its third wave since March, 2021 amidst which their hospitals saw their oxygen reserves fizzle out due to the strain of the virus.
Fearing the nightmare scenario unfolding in India, Kenya has been scrambling to increase capacity of the lifesaving elements for oxygen shortages.
A brand new oxygen production unit has been setup on the roof of the Metropolitan Hospital which has 150 bed private institution. The unit installed is capable of production up to 600 litres of the gas per minute.
The CEO of the hospital Kanyenje Gakombe said that it had to accelerate the plan after the supplies squeezed to the limit during the height of the third wave.
In April Kenya registered a record 571 deaths, and the health ministry warned hospitals were overrun with fewer than 300 patients in the Intensive Care Unit and fewer than 2,000 hospitalised countrywide.
“The reserve dwindled, it decreased to the point where we were collecting oxygen 24/7,” recalled Gakombe. At one point “we were down to six hours of reserves and that was a very, very worrying situation.”
Gakombe admits that in his 27 years at the helm of the facility, he had rarely worried about the oxygen supply which was “something we took for granted”.
But where a typical patient uses “two to 15 litres” of oxygen per minute, a Covid patient requires “up to 60 litres”, he said.
Gakombe also remarked that they don’t want to be dependent on the third parties for supplies.
The Africa Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has described what is happening in India as “very, very worrying”. Kenya has already detected the B.1.617 variant of Covid-19 that is one of the factors fuelling India’s dramatic surge in cases.
Kenya has a large Indo-Kenyan community and many citizens see India as a key medical destination for treatments not available at Kenya. “To see … the Indian healthcare system overrun, overwhelmed, that gets us worried. India is a place we look to for an example of good quality hospital healthcare,” said Gakombe.