Written By: Maxim Uzoatu
Oxygen is life. Where there is no oxygen, there is no life. But it is cool now to stress that Anambra State bustles with oxygen. It was indeed a sparkling breath of fresh oxygen when, on his birthday, Thursday, August 8, Anambra State Governor, Chief Willie Obiano inaugurated a multi-million naira medical oxygen plant at the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University Teaching Hospital , Amaku, Awka.
By investing in the oxygen plant, Governor Obiano has driven healthcare delivery in Anambra State to a laudable new level. The governor revealed that the installed oxygen plant had the capacity to serve, not just the hospitals in Anambra State, but also beyond. He then directed that all 500 primary health centres in the state should be given two oxygen cylinders free.
The oxygen plant is a regenerative investment, which is well poised to yield commercial benefits to the state in the drive to vastly accelerate the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR).
While astutely thanking Governor Obiano for the landmark project, the Chief Medical Director of COOUTH, Dr Basil Nwankwo, stated that the state had invested more than N2 billion in the hospital in the last couple of years. The cited projects include mother-and-child clinic, mega laboratory, attracting of a dedicated electricity line which now provides more than 20 hours power supply to the hospital, among others.
For the new Commissioner for Health, Dr Vincent Okpala, who until recently, was practicing medicine in the United States as a highly respected specialist, the oxygen plant in Anambra has positioned the state to blaze the trail in medical tourism. Anambra State would thus be the place to call by patients from all over the surrounding states with ailments like respiratory insufficiency, acute pneumonia, heart failure, energy generation, lung malfunction etcetera. The former Commissioner for Health, Dr Joe Akabuike, who played a pivotal role in rendering the project, said that the plant had an initial completion period of six months and was valued at about five hundred million naira.
The Managing Director of Anambra State Oxygen Production Plant, Dr Onyekachukwu Ibezim, stressed that the plant was capable of producing 200 standard oxygen cylinders daily. According to Dr Ibezim, it was in a bid to ensure that emergency situations and many challenging health conditions of Anambra people were met that informed the building of the plant.
Oxygen, no doubt, is important to the human body, especially in cases of trauma as a result of accidents, contraction during labour or severe asthma, when certain levels of oxygen will be needed to resuscitate victims. The World Health Organisation (WHO) standard sets that you just do not administer oxygen from air; you need to give a certain percentage of oxygen to assist in the revival process. Oxygen content is set at 93 percent purity, plus or minus 3, which means the content must not get below 90 percent or above 96.
The oxygen plant in Anambra State is currently the biggest in the South-East and was built primarily to meet local demands from medical installations in Anambra State and beyond.
A housewife, who witnessed the inauguration of the oxygen plant, narrated how she had a malformed child in 2005. She said that they could not source for oxygen around, compelling her and her husband to travel to University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan in search of treatment for the baby. She however regretted that the child died because of the time wasted before they could give her the necessary medications.
She was happy that with the new plant in COOUTH, people would no longer suffer as much as they did, stressing that the former challenges of ailing patients in Anambra and surrounding states can now be said to be over. Our prayers have at last been answered. God bless Akpokuedike’’! She said.
The oxygen plant at COOUTH, Awka is indeed a clear and present need.
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