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Oxygen and ventilators are required to treat respiratory complications associated with Covid-19.
- Additional medical oxygen is being brought to the Western Cape to cope with the increased demand during the rise of Covid-19.
- The province has not run out of oxygen, but last week it raised the alarm about how many more people need oxygen for their treatment.
- The head of the Health Department, Dr. Keith Cloete, said Afrox is bringing in additional oxygen capacity from other provinces.
Additional medical oxygen is being brought to the Western Cape to prevent facilities from running out of oxygen during the surge in Covid-19 cases, which has hit the province hard.
“We have not run out of medical oxygen,” Western Cape Health Department chief Dr. Keith Cloete told News24 in response to claims by some that this was the case.
“Afrox has brought in additional oxygen capacity from other provinces to prevent us from running out of oxygen.
“We have enough oxygen for public and private sector hospitals, and we are expanding our beds to accommodate more cases,” Cloete said.
The province’s Health Department is expected to present an update on the Covid-19 crisis on Tuesday at 1:00 p.m.
Increase in hospitalizations
Meanwhile, its spokesman Mark van der Heever said: “As expected, with the increase in hospitalizations comes the increased demand for oxygen.”
He added: “While we are still driving, the oxygen demand during this second wave of the pandemic is three times the volume in the pre-Covid period. The entire oxygen system is currently under strict control due to the number of patients requiring oxygen.”
Afrox, the gas supplier to public hospitals, could not immediately obtain comment, but the company has previously stated that it has adapted its production and transportation capacity to meet increased demand.
Hospitals were filling up alarmingly by December 28 (see chart below), and there were plans for more beds.
At the department’s December 28 briefing, red flags were already raised, with a warning that hospitals in all sub-districts were under severe pressure and the oxygen supply was under pressure.
One of the symptoms of Covid-19 in patients who do not have the mild case is difficulty breathing due to lung damage caused by the virus.
During the December 28 briefing, it was stated that oxygen utilization was operating at 68.92% of available daily capacity.
The country has returned to a level 3 lockdown in an attempt to mitigate the transmission of the virus and its new variant.
A vaccine is only expected in early April.
