By Our Reporter
The ministry of Health through officials at Mulago hospital have expressed their discontent with recent media reports in which it was claimed that two patients died at Mulago as a result of faulty Oxygen machines.
Mulago hospital in a statement has come out and stated that the two cases mentioned of a 70 year-old referral from Rubaga Hospital ICU and a 27 year-old case from Hoima regional referral Hospital all died of severe COVID-19 with multi-organ dysfunction.
“It is not true that the patients died due to lack of Oxygen. During this period, the Mulago Hospital ICU had other patients who posted better outcomes,” they said in the statement.
In the statement, they also refuted claims that Mulago spent almost 3 times the money to procure the same Oxygen plant as International Hospital of Kampala (IHK). According to Mulago officials, the report compared the price of the new plant with the old plant which is misleading. They said that they bought the latest state of the art plant with a way higher production capacity than the old plant or any other plant in the country.
The new plant has a production capacity of 125 cubic metres as opposed to the old one with 20 cubic metres. Furthermore, the purity levels of the new plant is 99.8% compared to the previous purity level of 60% for the Oxygen plant procured in 2012.
The officials also revealed that the plant is automated and can’t generate oxygen if the purity levels drop below 90%. All patients in need of oxygen are connected to a supply of medical grade oxygen which is always above 90%, contrary to what was alleged that patients are supplied with hot air.
An official at the ministry has also clarified that the oxygen plants were a direct procurement from the sole designated supplier in the country since 2004. Procurement was approved by PPDA as a direct procurement since the supplier has the service maintenance contract for the Oxygen plants in the country since 2012.
Meanwhile, four oxygen plants were recently installed at Mulago while Entebbe Grade B, Mbarara Regional Referral and Kayunga Hospital also each received a brand new oxygen plant.