Is Covid causing a shortage of medical oxygen?

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2021

⏱️ 17 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amidst rising Covid infection levels, we're looking at one alarming threat to health services from Brazil to Egypt - a lack of medical oxygen. Hospitals have been reporting running out altogether, with some critical care patients dying as a result. Where does medical oxygen come from and what is the problem with its supply? Ed Butler hears from Mike Grocott, professor of anaesthesia and critical care at the University of Southampton, as well as gas industry consultant John Raquet. Also in the programme, Pakistani comedian Shafaat Ali tells us what it’s like for patients forced to source their own oxygen to survive. (Picture: A man holds an oxygen tank in Manaus, Amazonas State, Brazil. Credit: Getty)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there, I'm Ed Butler and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC.
0:05.3	Today we're hearing it more and more in some hospitals around the world,
0:09.4	a catastrophic failure of the oxygen supply in emergency wards.
0:14.8	For the first time, we discovered that actually you could exceed the capacity of these systems
0:17.9	and that could be close to catastrophic.
0:20.5	It is the most essential fuel for emergency COVID care.
0:24.9	So is there an oxygen supply problem?
0:27.1	No one could be relaxed.
0:28.4	What I would say is the gas companies, the industrial and medical gas suppliers in every
0:33.9	country around the world is doing its utmost to improve the supply to the hospitals.
0:41.2	Take a breath. Business Daily from the BBC.
0:47.0	The sound of panic on the wards in Manas, the largest city in the inland Amazonas region of Brazil.
1:02.6	As this doctor desperately posts to anyone who will listen to her on social media,
1:07.7	the hospital where she works is running out of oxygen and people are dying.
1:16.6	Please share this video. Share it everywhere. Please. There are a lot of people dying. Please, we beg you. This is the situation. Only two cylinders have arrived. Whoever can help.
1:29.9	The director of the unit is desperate. We beg you. Whoever can help and bring an oxygen cylinder to the emergency unit at the Redemption Polyclinic. Please help.
1:40.5	The sense of panic in Manaus grabbed global headlines.
1:47.0	Understandably so, with a rising tide of infections, suddenly critically ill patients,
1:52.1	were dying for the lack of the most basic element of life.
1:55.8	And outside on the street last week, citizens in the city were also forming cues,
2:00.7	urgently trying to refill their
2:02.5	own cylinders to help loved ones.
	...

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