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Gulu, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Ministry of Health has delivered a new oxygen plant to Gulu Regional Referral Hospital to boost oxygen production. The Hospital Director Dr. James Elima, says that a technical team from the health ministry has already surveyed the proposed site for the oxygen site pending the installation of the plant expected to kick off soon.
Dr. Elima says the new plant will produce a maximum of 80 cylinders of oxygen daily to sufficiently support patients in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the hospital and other health facilities across the Acholi sub-region.
Dr. Elima says the new plant will boost the readiness of the hospital in combating COVID-19 as new cases continue to be registered.
Currently, Gulu Regional Referral Hospital only produces between 30 to 35 cylinders of oxygen from the plant installed by the health ministry in 2016. Although the hospital has been facing challenges in effectively producing oxygen due to power fluctuations, Dr Elima says the challenges may soon be over as the World Health Organization (WHO) has promised to deliver a new generator to back up the power supply.
Dr. Elima reveals that the hospital currently has seven COVID-19 patients in the ICU who are in critical but stable condition and are in need of oxygen. He however notes that for the last two months, the hospital hasn’t registered any COVID-19 related deaths despite new cases being registered.
In Acholi sub-region, the bulk of oxygen is produced at St Mary’s Hospital Lacor where two oxygen plants installed at the facility have a capacity of producing 28,000 litres of oxygen per hour. Dr. Cyprian Opira, the Executive Director of the hospital told Uganda Radio Network in an interview that they are currently using only one oxygen plant due to low demand.
Dr. Opira says the COVID-19 ward and the isolation unit are currently empty, adding that only the theatre and high dependency units are utilizing the oxygen being produced. On Friday last week, the health ministry launched the second phase of the mass COVID-19 vaccination in Acholi sub-region following low uptake of the vaccine in the region.
The mass vaccination will cover the eight districts of Gulu, Amuru, Nwoya, Lamwo, Agago, Kitgum, Pader, and Omoro. Speaking at the launch, Dr. Daniel Kyabayinze, the National Vaccination Commander and Director of Health Services in charge of public health says the region failed to hit targets in the first phase of mass vaccination last year.
He notes that only five districts in the region performed well during the first phase of the mass vaccination campaign. The worst performing were Amuru, Nwoya, Gulu city and Gulu district. Statistics indicate that despite Gulu district and Gulu city combined getting a total of 165,000 doses of vaccines, only 45 percent of the doses were utilized while in Nwoya only 58,000 people out of the targeted 128,000 were vaccinated.
In Amuru district, vaccination performance stood at only 43 percent despite the health ministry dispatching a total of 110,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccines.
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