A patient on oxygen
The United Nations Children’s Fund in collaboration with the IHS Nigeria have said the Oxygen plant donated to the Eleme General Hospital in Eleme Local Government Area of Rivers State has served as a major life saver.
The firm’s said the donation has since aid a major bridge in existing health gaps in the state and its environs.
The Director of Sustainability at IHS Nigeria, Titilope Ogunyuga said this when UNICEF officials led delegates of IHS NIgeria to the plant located in Ogale community in Eleme Local Government Area of the state.
The plant handed over to the Rivers State Government has the capacity to produce 123 cylinders and 720,000 litres of oxygen every 24 hours.
The plant was built under a Public-Private Partnership arrangement involving UNICEF, the Canadian Government, IHS, and the Rivers State Ministry of Health through the State Hospital Management Board.
Speaking during the visit to the facility, Titilope Oguntuga, said the Oxygen plant has helped a lot in saving lives and bridging health gaps in eight other states where similar plants were built and handed over.
Oguntuga, said the visit underscores the organisation’s commitment “not only to create opportunities for impact but also to continue supporting beneficiaries by monitoring many of our interventions.”
“This plant is one of the nine oxygen plants we have built across the federation. We are particularly excited that it is helping to bridge health gaps—not just in Rivers State and its environs, but also in all the states where the plants are currently located.”Oguntuga said.
She added, “We focus our intervention sustainability on four pillars; ethics and governance, education and economic growth, environment and climate change and finally, people and communities.
“The visit to the Port Harcourt oxygen plant is to have an assessment on how well the plant is functioning, the impact it is currently making and to generally understand how the operations are going”.
In his remark, the Chief of UNICEF Field Office, Port Harcourt, Dr Anslem Audu, expressed delight with the commissioning of the Oxygen Plant, adding that, the facility has been very functional and useful to people of the State.
Audu said, “The era of lack of oxygen is no longer there. You can practically visit any of the hospitals in Port Harcourt and find out that they have oxygen and the product is from this plant all thanks to IHS, the Canadian Government and UNICEF”.
Earlier, Medical Director of the Eleme General Hospital, Dr Leechi-Okere Clarabelle, confirmed that since it was unveiled last year, the plant has been functioning very well.
Dr Leechi-Okere stated, “We’ve had success stories whereby oxygen is distributed to public hospitals in the state, including the two teaching hospitals in the state and then we have also extended distribution to some private hospitals within the state.
“We have two hubs where we store the oxygen because of the location of the plant. We produce here and store somewhere in Port Harcourt so that people who, because of the distance, can get oxygen from those hubs. So we have those hubs that serve as our storage and distribution sites.”
