Scarce medical oxygen worldwide leaves many gasping for life

[Dennis Donovan]

https://apnews.com/df97326ec00fb7cc4abf5b3821ace984


In this Monday, June 8, 2020 file photo, people wearing masks amid the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic wait for hours, some for 10 hours, to refill their oxygen tanks at a shop in Callao, Peru. Long neglected hospitals around the world are reporting shortages of oxygen as they confront the spread of the disease. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia)

By LORI HINNANT, CARLEY PETESCH and BOUBACAR DIALLO

an hour ago

CONAKRY, Guinea (AP) — Guinea’s best hope for coronavirus patients lies inside a neglected yellow shed on the grounds of its main hospital: an oxygen plant that has never been turned on.

The plant was part of a hospital renovation funded by international donors responding to the Ebola crisis in West Africa a few years ago. But the foreign technicians and supplies needed to complete the job can’t get in under Guinea’s coronavirus lockdowns — even though dozens of Chinese technicians came in on a charter flight last month to work at the country’s lucrative mines. Unlike many of Guinea’s public hospitals, the mines have a steady supply of oxygen.

As the coronavirus spreads, soaring demand for oxygen is bringing out a stark global truth: Even the right to breathe depends on money. In much of the world, oxygen is expensive and hard to get — a basic marker of inequality both between and within countries.

In wealthy Europe and North America, hospitals treat oxygen as a fundamental need, much like water or electricity. It is delivered in liquid form by tanker truck and piped directly to the beds of coronavirus patients. Running short is all but unthinkable for a resource that literally can be pulled from the air.

In Spain, as coronavirus deaths climbed, engineers laid 7 kilometers (4 miles) of tubing in less than a week to give 1,500 beds in an impromptu hospital a direct supply of pure oxygen. Oxygen is also plentiful and brings the most profits in industrial use such as mining, aerospace, electronics and construction.

But in poor countries, from Peru to Bangladesh, it is in lethally short supply.

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[ProfessorGAC]

1. I Believe It

Those plants that purify and bottle gasses are not built to absorb a 50 or 100 or 200% increase in daily demand.
Admittedly there is unused capacity, because most of these plants don't run 24/7. The bulk side might, but not the bottle filling part.
So, the could run OT and increase capacity by 40%. But that's about it, and that's not all of them.
The purified oxygen side is highly regulated so shortcuts are illegal, at least in North America, Europe & Japan. (Likely Australia, too.)
The capital cost of expanded bottling is not very high, but the opposite is true of the full scale purification systems.
That's high capital cost and project time would be measured in months not weeks.
In a pandemic involving respiratory illness, this was a predictable outcome.

[WestLosAngelesGal]

2. When I took care of my mom as she was dying,

she had a machine that made oxygen from the air in the room. No tanks necessary. I hope they can get some of those machines for the people who need them.

[captain queeg]

3. That's what I thought of. Probably expensive though

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. Anywhere from $200 to over $2000

I had one prescribed for a while a few years ago (serious COPD episode) and that one retailed for about $750 or so. I also had a portable one that retailed for even more.

Just search “Oxygen Concentrators” to see what is available.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

5. K&R