Ridge hospital running out of oxygen to treat coronavirus patients

The COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Greater Accra Regional Hospital, Ridge, is running out of oxygen necessary for the treatment of critically ill patients.

This is because the facility has in recent times, been overwhelmed by the increasing number of severe cases.

Dr Emmanuel Ahiable, the COVID-19 Case Management Lead at the Hospital, in an interview with GNA said the critical care beds at the Unit had been occupied since January 08, 2021, with high demand for oxygen.

Consequently, the Centre is said to be in urgent need of higher volumes of oxygen as each patient at the ICU requires 15 litres of oxygen per minute, with patients staying on oxygen for at least two weeks.

He said after January 8, the Unit had had to expand its eight-bed facility to 16, as it received more referrals from across the Greater Accra Region.

Dr Ahiable said the Unit had seen about 50 severe to critical cases from January 1st to 31st this year.

He said 20 out of the number recovered and discharged, 18, made up of 11 males, six females and a five-year-old boy died while 13 are still on admission.

Dr Ahiable said the Unit, therefore, urgently needed ventilators (Halminton C1) because patients who needed high volumes of oxygen recovered quickly on ventilators.

He noted that the Unit was also running out of COVID-19 test kits with more people walking in to get tested.

Dr Ahiable, therefore, appealed to government and private institutions to support the Facility in the fight against the pandemic.