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A national policy aimed at ensuring the production and provision of medical oxygen to various health facilities across the country has been launched.
The policy by the Ministry of Health will establish a framework and also come out with a strategy that would scale up production, availability, access and use of the oxygen.
The nation is faced with a high rate of death due to the lack of access to oxygen which is essential for the treatment of patients with lung and other diseases.
The policy, therefore, will help deal with the wide range of diseases where hypoxemia (insufficient oxygen in the blood) arises as a complication to reduce mortality and morbidity.
It will also establish a regulatory system for the production, procurement, installation, distribution and rational use of the oxygen, strengthen the supply chain management systems and also establish a robust monitoring and evaluation regime for management of the oxygen.
The Chief of Staff, Akosua Frema Osei-Opare, who launched the policy in Accra yesterday, said per the new policy, hospitals would be constructed with adequate facilities for medical oxygen supply, distribution and delivery to patients, while existing facilities would be equipped with the needed equipment to achieve the objectives of the policy.
“I want to urge all health facilities, both public and private, to adopt the government digitalisation agenda to effectively maintain and manage data on oxygen resources in order to prevent shortages,” the Chief of Staff added.
She said the provision and expansion of priority healthcare infrastructure to increase access to quality care in the country had been the focus of the government for which reason it introduced the Agenda 111 health projects policy.
The Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyeman-Manu, said the availability and supply of oxygen to patients was inadequate.
The COVID-19 pandemic, he said, had increased medical oxygen demand by about three to sevenfold, hence, the need to strengthen the health system to make it more resilient and responsive by progressively developing capacity in the production of key inputs, including medical oxygen.
Mr Agyeman-Manu further said studies had shown that improved supply and utilisation of medical oxygen could reduce mortality from childhood pneumonia by 35 per cent.
He said respiratory diseases accounted for 15.5 per cent of deaths across all ages in health facilities in 2020, and about 16.5 per cent deaths in children under five years.
“It is reported that there are about 5,000 pneumonia-related deaths annually in newborn and children under five years in the country.
“Pneumonia is the third highest cause of death in children under five years in the country,” the minister added.
The World Health Organisation (WHO’s) representative in Ghana, Dr Francis Chisaka Kasolo, said the unavailability of medical oxygen could not be solved by a single entity or organisation and, therefore, pledged the support of WHO to ensure the policy succeeded.
“It requires a collective effort from the government, healthcare providers, manufacturers and the international community.
We must act swiftly and decisively to bridge the gap between oxygen supply and demand,” he said.
