Is the maximum amount of time Jacob Ismail can go without oxygen.
hotspot provinces.
Nasrec doctors called on the public to lend the hospital oxygen concentrators – portable home devices used to extract oxygen from the environment – according to Democratic Alliance MPL Jack Bloom.
This was following concerns raised by doctors at the field hospital at Nasrec and reports of low oxygen pressure at Charlotte Maxeke Academic Hospital in Johannesburg.
But, according to Vital Aire, the South African subsidiary of multinational Aire Liquide, South Africa is not running short on medical oxygen.
In replies to Saturday Citizen’s questions on how the industry was responding to the high demand, a company spokesperson said: “VitalAire South Africa can confirm that the needs of state patients under home oxygen therapy in Riverlea have been met.”
Regarding the supply of oxygen to hospitals, the company said it had noted some increase in consumption in some hospitals, first in the Western Cape, then in the Eastern Cape and now in Gauteng. But there was no anticipated shortage of medical oxygen during the pandemic, they insisted.
“Our interactions with governmental institutions and hospitals have been fruitful so far. The department of health has looked at various scenarios of response and made sure the industry would be able to answer all of them.
“The safety of patients remains the absolute priority.”
This as concerns government was not acting fast enough to procure enough ventilation equipment as Covid-19 cases requiring critical care continue to rise.
“Affrox says quite clearly they’re not short of oxygen, they just haven’t been asked for it,” said Bloom.
“Oxygen is available, but how do you get it to the sick patients?
“It obviously has be transported to the right way. The main way would be piped oxygen delivered to the bed. You would need pipes to convey the oxygen to the ward and preferably to each bed.
“The problem at Nasrec is that they didn’t put in the pipes to convey the oxygen so now they are desperately making up for lost time and putting in the pipes.
“The doctors made an appeal to the public for oxygen concentrators.”
This week, United States ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks announced a R59 million aid package to assist with Covid-19.
Through the US Agency for International Development, the foreign government would be working with the national health department to help South African oxygen manufacturers – Afrox, Air Liquide Global E&C Solutions South Africa and others – to increase their production by as much as eight times to meet Covid-19 needs.
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