Ghanaian Hospital gets $7m oxygen plant

By Omotayo Edubi

An Oxygen plant worth US $7 million has been installed by Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital in Ghana.

This is part of efforts to address the challenge of lack of oxygen at the hospital.

Some surgeries had suspended by the hospital last year due to the low pressure of the oxygen plant as well as the unavailability of oxygen in the hospital and led to many deaths.

The Chief Executive Officer of Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr. Opoku-Ware Ampomah, said that the construction of the oxygen plant is a step in the right direction because the demand for oxygen in the era of Covid-19 in the hospital was more than the hospital’s oxygen capacity.

“In the era of Covid-19, oxygen demand went up so this outstripped the ability of our oxygen plants to supply. We had some individual oxygen concentrators for the surgical and maternity blocks, but these have not been functioning for some time now, and they are being refurbished as we speak. So at that time, there was a shortfall in our oxygen availability, but for the thing that happened, it was actually related to just one particular department, which was the surgical theater.

“So now that it is completed, it will ensure that we have redundancy in the oxygen supply because oxygen is a very essential element in the work that we do. So we will ensure that going forward, we have extra capacity and extra redundancy within the system so that the oxygen needs will be a thing of the past,” he said.

According to the project manager, the oxygen plant has six times the capacity of oxygen required by Korle-Bu, and if it is properly maintained, it can last up to fifty years.

The Managing Director of Engisys Limited, Nana Yaw Appiah, indicated that the commencement of oxygen distribution at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital has begun.

“If properly maintained, it can last for 50 years or even more. In terms of capacity, we are producing at the moment six times the capacity of what the entire Korle-bu needs. We are generating around 300 Newton meter Q Per hour, and at the moment Korle-bu’s consumption is about 50 Newton meter Q per hour, so roughly about six times. So if you look at the size of Korle-bu, it means we can supply all hospitals in the Greater Accra Region, and this is medical-grade oxygen, as I showed you on the screen, we are producing at 96% purity, and that is the highest you can never get in the country.”