BY DAYO ADESULU
Following the donation of ventilator worth US$699,500 to the Ministry of Health (MOH) by the World Bank recently to ensuring that Liberian “lives are safe by building the health system in the country, the Ministry has again received, 21 pieces of Oxygen Concentrators from the World Health Organization (WHO) to support its Coronavirus response. The donation was made on Thursday, August 6, 2020, on the Ministry’s Compound in Congo Town, Monrovia.
An oxygen concentrator is a device that concentrates the oxygen from a gas supply (typically ambient air) by selectively removing nitrogen to supply an oxygen-enriched product gas stream. Two methods in common use are pressure swing adsorption and membrane gas separation.
The machines worth over US$14,280.00, using pressure swing adsorption (PSA) technology will be used for oxygen provision in healthcare applications, especially where liquid or pressurized oxygen is too dangerous or inconvenient. Treatment units facing a shortage of oxygen concentrators will now benefit from the supplies, according to the Ministry of Health’s press release.
These machines will be distributed among our fifteen political sub-division in order to enhance our fight against the virus
Receiving the donation on behalf of the Government, Dr Wilhelmina Jallah thanked WHO for always coming to the aid of the Country, especially her Ministry in these critical and difficult times of the pandemic. “You have always been there for us in these critical and difficult times of the pandemic,” she stressed.
The energetic Health Minister said, with the spread of the deadly coronavirus across the Country, the machines will be distributed among the fifteen political sub-division of the Country to boost the fight against the virus.
“Now, we are happy that these 21 pieces of machines are in-country. These machines will be distributed among our fifteen political sub-division in order to enhance our fight against the virus”, she disclosed.
Earlier, delivering the machines to the Ministry, WHO Representative Liberia, Dr. Peter L. Clement, said the donation is the Healthy Body’s ways of contributing to Liberia’s COVID-19 response, saying “this donation is part of WHO support to Liberia’s COVID-19 response”
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The oxygen concentrator which takes in air and removes nitrogen from it, leaving an oxygen-enriched gas for use by people requiring medical oxygen due to low oxygen levels in their blood, will enhance nurses and doctors’ work at various treatment units.