Kenyan hospital makes own oxygen

Nairobi – At the peak of Kenya’s third wave of Covid-19 in March, hospitals – buckling under the strain of the virus – saw their oxygen reserves fizzle out.

Since then, they have been scrambling to increase capacity of the lifesaving element, fearing the nightmare scenario currently unfolding in India due to oxygen shortages.

On the roof of the 150-bed private Metropolitan Hospital that targets the middle class, a brandnew oxygen production unit has just been installed that is capable of producing up to 600 litres of the gas per minute.

Metropolitan chief executive Kanyenje Gakombe said the hospital accelerated plans to produce its own oxygen after supplies were squeezed to the limit during the height of the third wave, fanned by variants first detected in Britain and South Africa. In April, Kenya registered a record 571 deaths, and the health ministry warned hospitals were overrun with 300 patients in intensive care unit and 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”.