Engineers tackling Malawi’s Covid oxygen crisis need your help

‘Open O2’ volunteers offer a cost-effective way to provide necessary care, says David Hope-jones OBE

In the last week Scots have been giving generously to a collaborative emergency appeal which is supporting the supply of oxygen to hospitals in Malawi, but more is needed.

Generally, Malawi seemed to fare comparably well through 2020 with regardstocovid-19.newinfectionsand mortality declined from late July with less than 200 Covid-attributed deaths by the end of the year. This all changed at the start of 2021, with more deaths in January than all of 2020. Malawi hit the global headlines when two Cabinet Ministers died of Covid within 24 hours, with the President declaring a national emergency on 12 January.

New cases increased exponentially in January, doubling every four to five days, with reports of healthcare systems being potentially overwhelmed

across the country and a serious shortage of oxygen.

In the spirit of collaboration and coordination, the scottish parliament’ s Malawi cross party group joined forces with westminster’ s malawi all-party Parliamentary Group for a joint meeting on 25 January to discuss the worsening crisis in Malawi. Amazingly, more than 250 organisations and individuals joined this digital meeting, to listen to the Malawian Minister of Health update both Parliaments and stakeholders.

Tragically, every Malawian speaker on the agenda in this meeting had lost close colleagues, friends or family in the last week due to Covid. Dr Matthews Mtumbuka, CEO of Ubuntunet Alliance and former chair of the malawi Scotland Partnership, was just out of hospital with Covid, where he was

onoxygenforsevendays.hedescribed how he only survived because family members drove around Lilongwe sourcing oxygen cylinders when the hospital ran out. Moved by this account,scottishgroupscametogether,underthescotlandmalawipartnershipnationalnetwork,toformanoxygen Coordination Group: connecting organisations together and exploring whatmorecouldbedoneurgently.the Coordination Group includes each of the major institutions and NGOS in Malawi and Scotland.

One of the challenges the Group has identifiedishowbesttosupportmalawi now, when it takes four-six weeks for new oxygen equipment to arrive in Malawi. Their appeal is supporting a group of Malawian engineers called ‘Open O2.’ This volunteer group of engineers has repurposed minibuses as mobile workshops, and are driving around Malawi fixing broken oxygen concentrators.

350brokenconcentratorshavebeen identifiedsofarandthegroupthinksit could easily rehabilitate half of these. The numbers are compelling. One tripbythisgroupofvolunteerstoadistrict hospital costs around £600 and can result in 30 oxygen concentrators being fixed. Purchasing 30 new concentrators would cost over £30,000, and take four-six weeks to arrive.

If there is one thing we’ve learnt over the last year, it’s the need to work together, think laterally and be led by the data. Scotland and Malawi are doing just this, and we encourage all who can to support this inspiring appeal. To donate, visit: www.tinyurl.com/ Malawio2. The appeal closes on 28 February

David Hope-jones OBE, Chief Executive, Scotland Malawi Partnership