Mulago Speaks Out On Covid Deaths, Faulty Oxygen Pipes

  Local news   Dec 3, 2020   0  Add to Reading List

By; Denis Kayongo. Mulago National Referral Hospital has responded to what they termed false allegations from a Sunday Monitor publication concerning death of two covid-19 patients as a result of faulty oxygen pipes and insufficient oxygen supply.

Mulago Speaks Out On Covid Deaths, Faulty Oxygen Pipes

The article published on Sunday after several months of investigation lists various other shortcomings in the hospital healthcare delivery and its response to the coronavirus pandemic, including complaints from health workers who lack adequate equipment, are overworked and on low pay.

While addressing journalists at the hospital yesterday, the executive director, Dr Byarugaba Baterana, denied most of the issues raised in the investigative story.

One specific area was about the hospital losing Covid patients due to insufficient medical oxygen.

Part of the investigative story read: "When the ICU staff checked their equipment, they made a startling discovery. The oxygen being delivered to Patient Six had a concentration of just 25 per cent, only marginally higher than the 21 per cent in the atmosphere that humans ordinarily breathe in unassisted. Patients in ICU typically require this to be higher than 90 per cent concentration."

But Dr Baterana refuted the oxygen supply statistics, saying the hospital has enough capacity to produce enough oxygen for patients within and for other referral facilities.

"The allegation that oxygen supplied to patients dropped from 90 per cent to 20 per cent is not true. We would like to clarify that oxygen is delivered to the user wards through pipes when its purity is ranging between 93 per cent and 100 per cent," he said.

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