UPDATED: Gasping for air
Crisis looms as COVID-19 spike depletes oxygen supply
Published:Sunday | August 29, 2021 | 12:07 AMTameka Gordon - Senior Staff Reporter
Jamaica’s healthcare system was plunged into crisis mode on Saturday, as word came that IGL – the country’s sole producer of medical oxygen – is running low on the much-needed commodity and would not be getting another supply until Monday.
Up to late Saturday evening, hospital managers and health officials were locked in meetings trying to find solutions to the crisis and ways to manage their fast dwindling oxygen supply. Hospitals and medical practitioners were advised to carefully use what oxygen they had on hand until the situation could be remedied.
Since July, oxygen has been in high demand across the country’s hospitals as Jamaica grapples with its third wave of COVID-19 that has led to high rates of infection, hospitalisation and death. The confirmation of the Delta variant in the country is believed to be a contributing factor to the rate of the spread.
Just last week, concerns were raised by stakeholders about the country’s oxygen supply as Jamaica became firmly gripped in the clutches of the third surge, with hospitals buckling under the pressure of serious cases and unable to manage the overwhelming numbers.
On Friday, Jamaica recorded the highest number of hospitalisation of COVID-19 patients, with some 728 people in facilities islandwide. Fifty-eight were critically ill, 86 severely ill and 194 moderately ill, meaning they would, among other things, require oxygenation.
Now, with the Government declaring that all major public hospitals are over capacity for admissions – forcing them to recall some healthcare workers from vacation and out of retirement, particularly for the western region, which is the hardest hit in the new wave – and that public hospitals will only be conducting emergency services as COVID-19 cases exceed current capacity for isolation, IGL is again under pressure to cope with the demand.
“The oxygen situation has been precarious since yesterday [Friday] due to significant increase in demand as a result of increase hospitalisations from COVID-19,” Health Minister Dr Christopher Tufton told The Gleaner on Saturday.
He conceded that IGL is having difficulties keeping up with the demand, “both from their local production and from sourcing overseas”.
SECOND TIME IN FIVE MONTHS
This is the second time in five months that the country is teetering on the brink of an oxygen supply predicament, as during the COVID-19 spike in March, the commodity was in short supply.
However, IGL said then that they had put systems in place to avert another occurrence. The company had announced a US$400,000 of additional investments done since March aimed at improving its capacity to deliver.
In fact, earlier this month, IGL announced that it was in a better position to cope if the demand again rose to the level seen earlier this year when hospitalisations increased during the spike.
But just three weeks after this announcement, the rapidly increasing COVID-19 cases have sunk this assurance.
Inspite of repeated attempts on Saturday, Peter Graham, managing director for IGL, could not be reached for an update on the situation that some have dubbed “at a crisis level”.
The Gleaner was informed by health officials, however, that a shipment of oxygen is en route to Jamaica, with hospitals told they can expect deliveries by Monday.
Confirming the expected oxygen shipment and noting that the current shortage “represents a major threat to our public health response right now,” Dr Tufton told The Gleaner that diversifying the country’s source of oxygen “is not that easy”.
“Right now, it’s about trying to address the immediate,” he said, adding that discussions on another source will be had after the current crisis is resolved.
CONCERN FOR NON-COVID PATIENTS
Meanwhile, doctors at some of the country’s major hospitals have voiced concerns for non-COVID-19 patients who are also impacted by the oxygen shortage.
For Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA) president, Dr Mindi Fitz-Henley, “the oxygen shortage has a much wider reach. It’s not just COVID-19 patients that are now struggling. We have babies and asthmatic patients that are now struggling and we are all afraid of the devastation that could now happen because many people have not taken COVID-19 seriously.”
Senior Medical Officer at Cornwall Regional Hospital in St James, Dr Derek Harvey, echoed the concerns.
“The operating theatre and the nursery run on bulk [oxygen] but there is high demand from the COVID block, so it drops the pressure. When this happens, some of the machines which require a certain pressure to run don’t function well so that is where we are having the issue,” Dr Harvey told The Gleaner.
As for the hospital’s current oxygen supply given the shortage: “We are critical, but if we don’t get any more tonight [Saturday night], we are going to have a crisis.”
Kingston Public Hospital, one of the island’s busiest on the front line of the battle against the deadly pandemic, “should be able to survive until the large shipment comes on Monday,” CEO Burknell Stewart said.
Having voiced plans some time ago to set up its own oxygen facility, the CEO said those plans haven’t yet got off the ground due to funding issues.
The opposition People’s National Party has called for the Government to immediately reach out to Jamaica’s neighbours, the United States and Canada, for emergency supplies of oxygen to be airlifted to Jamaica to alleviate the critical shortage affecting the hospital system.
However, Minister Tufton has noted the challenges given the constraints in those markets with increasing COVID-19 cases of their own.
“Hospital management teams continue to do what they can to move the limited supplies around to deal with critical cases, but it’s challenging,” Tufton said.
The Gleaner has learnt that the Jamaica Defence Force is now on standby to assist with the emergency.
EDITOR'S NOTE:
An earlier version of this story read:
Jamaica’s healthcare system was plunged into crisis mode on Saturday, as word came that IGL – the country’s sole producer of medical oxygen – ran out of the much-needed commodity and would not be getting another supply until Monday.
It should read:
Jamaica’s healthcare system was plunged into crisis mode on Saturday, as word came that IGL – the country’s sole producer of medical oxygen – is running low on the much-needed commodity and would not be getting another supply until Monday.