Saving oxygen critical to saving Covid patients’ lives – Dr Anthony
─ at opening of oxygen management workshop
Twenty-five (25) persons in the medical field are currently undergoing a Healthcare Technology Management Training, to better manage the distribution of oxygen to patients.
At the opening of the workshop at Duke Lodge on Wednesday, Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony noted that the management of oxygen is critical to saving lives of patients affected by COVID-19.
“The core part of the programme deals with the management of oxygen because this is one of our immediate challenges. And as you know, the reason for that is that we have COVID-19 patients in every single region, and if we don’t have the right way of managing the oxygen, then that can be detrimental to those patients,” Minister Anthony said.
The training, a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Health and the Pan American Health Organisation/World Health Organisation (PAHO/WHO), stemmed from a recommendation by the Clinical and Hospital Engineer, PAHO Oxygen Technical Group, Lucio Brito.
Brito conducted an assessment of the district hospitals in Guyana and found that oxygen is being wasted at many of the facilities, as a high pressure of oxygen is being used, expending a large volume.
“The recommendation that he made is, look, we need to identify people across the region, who can start trading, making sure that these persons have the basic knowledge of how to manage this, and once they are able to do that, we will see better outcomes,” Dr. Anthony noted.
Following the training, persons interested in remaining in the field of biomedical technicians, will be further trained to preserve the life of other equipment at hospitals.
Minister Anthony said there will be an annual systemic training of biomedical technicians beyond oxygen management.
He explained in some instances, that equipment become defunct two years after purchasing, due to lack of regular maintenance.
The training will ensure money spent by the government to source the much-needed medical equipment, is not squandered.