Benjamin Nworie in Abakaliki
The Vice Chancellor of David Umahi Federal University of Health Sciences (DUFUS), Ebonyi State, Professor Jesse Uneke, has said that Nigeria is losing over 600,000 people yearly due to issues relating to the administration of medical oxygen.
Uneke, who is the Nigerian and State Lead/Principal Investigator for the EQUI-RESP Africa Research Project, disclosed this in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, during the First Stakeholders’ Engagement Event/Co-Creation Workshop on Medical Oxygen Economy organised by the university in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh, UK, supported by the National Institute for Health and Research (NIHR), UK.
He explained that the administration of medical oxygen issues was happening because there was no platform where stakeholders in the medical oxygen space could come together to discuss the research-policy interface and see how to contextualise some of the strategies against the problems for the country.
“That is why, in this phase of this project, we have decided to start with this kind of stakeholders’ engagement. I am excited that we have every key stakeholder in the medical oxygen space represented here,” Uneke said.
He opined that the project started its first phase by carrying out intervention work in three industrial areas of the state: quarry industrial site in Onueke, rice mill in Abakaliki, and timber market.
According to him, “This project has to do with respiratory health, and the idea is to come up with strategies that will lead to interventions that will improve health outcomes as far as respiratory health is concerned.
“We carried out intervention research in these three areas, where the project was able to treat between 300 and 400 people free of charge.
“We provided them with inhalers, carried out other free diagnoses and guided them on how to stay healthy regarding their respiratory health.
“We are very grateful to the founders of this project for selecting Nigeria as one of the five countries in Africa where the EQUI RESP project is being implemented.
“The project is significantly placed within the global health space because, if anything is going to happen in terms of research aimed at identifying strategies that will enhance health outcomes in Africa, Nigeria cannot be excluded.
“We are fortunate that Nigeria was not just selected as one of the five African countries. We also have Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, South Africa, Cameroon, and, of course, Nigeria. We have two centres in Nigeria, one in Ebonyi State and one in Lagos State.
“Because the project also has to do with health policy and health systems, particularly moving evidence into policy, I was brought into the project and asked to lead the Ebonyi State research. So, we are very grateful that this project came to Nigeria and, specifically, to Ebonyi State.”
He added that: “Ebonyi State was selected because of the very excellent work that the current administration under Governor Francis Nwifuru is doing.
“Ebonyi is one of the states where partners can easily come and carry out projects in collaboration with not only the state government, but also institutions like our university and other institutions within the state, including the two teaching hospitals. There is also an enabling environment and the excellent work being done by the state Commissioner for Health.
“We are now getting into the second phase. We have moved from the community-based project to the hospital-based phase. In this hospital-based phase, we are focusing on medical oxygen and the medical oxygen economy.
“From what we have seen, this is one of the areas that is not well emphasised as far as the health sector is concerned. Nigeria is said to be losing over 600,000 people yearly due to issues related to the administration of medical oxygen. The problem is that these deaths are very preventable.”
In his remarks, the Chief Medical Director, Alex Ekwueme Federal University Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki (AE-FUTHA), Professor Robinson Onoh, described the EQUI-RESP Africa Research project as multi-country research involving Nigeria and other countries and also a multi-centre research involving different centres.
He commended Governor Francis Nwifuru for creating the enabling environment for oxygen production centres in the state, which were not in existence before he came on board.
He said: “I want to commend the governor of Ebonyi State because before he came in as governor, there was no place where oxygen was produced in Ebonyi State. But by the time he came up and created an enabling environment, we now have areas in Ebonyi State where oxygen is being produced.
“And today, we can boast of multiple centres in Ebonyi State where medical oxygen is being produced. The importance of medical oxygen was noticed during the era of COVID. That was when it became obvious that we have an issue with that in Nigeria.
“Because it was discovered that for COVID patients to survive, you need oxygen. And when you now have multiple persons needing oxygen, we now discovered that there was a problem. And that’s why oxygen is being produced in a lot of places.
“And I want to inform you that one of the oxygen production centres in Ebonyi State is located in AE-FUTHA. So, I commend the governor for that.”