South African Hospital Pioneers Solution in Medical Oxygen Supply

A group of doctors and engineers have installed an oxygen concentrator that allows Madwaleni District Hospital to generate its own oxygen - something that became an important lifeline at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic for patients admitted there and the surrounding clinics.

The concentrator they installed is a containerised Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) oxygen generator. Per Wikipedia's description of the process, the PSA is based on the phenomenon that under high pressure, gases tend to be trapped onto solid surfaces, i.e., to be "adsorbed". The higher the pressure, the more gas is adsorbed. When the pressure is dropped, the gas is released, or desorbed.

Oxygen shortages were a mainline problem throughout the Covid-19 pandemic in multiple African countries. In Somalia, the World Health Organisation boosted oxygen supplies to hospitals as part of "a strategic roadmap to boost oxygen supply in hospitals across the country."

Additionally, the high cost of medical oxygen severely impacted patients in Nigeria where its unaffordability resulted in the deaths of many suffering from Covid-19 in hospitals, Daily Trust reported. Findings made by a subsequent investigation revealed that Covid-19 complicated the challenges associated with getting medical oxygen.