Oxygen plant to meet country’s health needs – Official

The Ministry of Health has said the country’s Oxygen Plant, established at the Juba Teaching Hospital, is now ready to respond to emergency needs across the country. 

The centre has a reserve of 240 cylinders filled with oxygen. 

Chief of Planning and Information for Public Health Emergency Operation Center (PHEOC) Mabior Kiir Kudior said the Oxygen Plant was in its full capacity to support emergency health needs across the country.

“We still have 240 cylinders, the ones that are already filled, and one oxygen cylinder has 340 litres,” he said.

“Oxygen cylinder is not like any other item that is distributed across the states because it has a special way of how it is maintained,” Kudior told The City Review in an exclusive interview at the Public Health Emergency Center in Juba yesterday. 

However, Kudior said there were underway plans for the oxygen plant to be distributed in the state, adding that there was a need first for the states to prepare on how to maintain it.

“We prioritise the needs, if there are no needs that a rise in the states that needs the oxygen [then] we keep it in Juba but we do have a plan of having at least oxygen plant in every part of the country so that they can help the rest of the state facilities like hospitals at state levels,” Kudior explained

How it works

He said the national ministry of health was developing a concept note on a long and short-term plan of maintaining the oxygen plant.

“As of now, the committee is already set up on how they will be distributing the oxygen and there is a plan to make sure that the biomedical engineers are deployed in the whole country because the oxygen plant is managed by the 11 trained biomedical engineers but as per now they are based at Juba Teaching Hospital,” Kudior stressed. 

The oxygen plant has been supplying the Dr John Garang Infectious Disease Unit but it is operating from the Juba Teaching Hospital.

On July 1, 2021, World Health Organisation (WHO) stated that the Oxygen Plant has a generation capacity of 2,500 litres per day and the ability to refill around 72 D-type oxygen cylinders daily, the plant will be a centralised production and supply hub for remote locations. The equipment included 240 cylinders and four years of service and accessories. The $980 000-oxygen plant project cost includes the procurement and construction of a facility to house the plant in Juba.

Ministry of Health Elizabeth Achuei said the installation of the plant would help the nation’s preparedness for oxygen in fighting COVID-19.

“South Sudan will no longer be importing oxygen from the neighbouring countries and that means oxygen will be supplied on time to the people and more lives will be saved,” she said 

The World Health Organisation Representative for South Sudan Fabian Ndenzako said that the installation of the oxygen plant will be a great boost to provide intensive care treatment to the critical ill COVID-19 Patients in the country

The plant would strengthen the country’s health system and improve emergency preparedness, particularly in the country’s COVID-19 response. He talked during the handover of the Oxygen plant in July 2021.