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Tents used for accommodating Covid-19 patients for medication at Homa Bay Teaching Referral Hospital. The facility has run out of beds set preserved for the disease. [James Omoro, Standard]
Homa Bay County Referral hospital has run short of oxygen and space to treat Covid-19 patients amid rising cases.
The hospital has run out of oxygen after its generator failed to pump the important gas into oxygen cylinders in the hospital.
Depletion of the important gas has occurred when the hospital is receiving many Covid-19 patients. This is due to the high number of Covid-19 patients that increases daily.
The situation has left many patients in dire need of the vital gas.
Caretakers of patients who need oxygen are now worried by the shortage.
"My sister direly needs oxygen, but the gas is not available in the health facility. We need help," said a patient's relative.
The County Health Executive Prof Richard Muga said they had sent their vans to collect the gas in Kisumu and Nyamira.
"Our generator which fills Oxygen cylinders has developed hitches. We have sent the vans to Kisumu and Nyamira to get us oxygen to rescue the situation," Muga said.
Apart from oxygen, the hospital bed-capacity Covid-19 patients in the High Dependency Unity is also full.
The situation has forced the management to improvise tents in order to accommodate the patients.
Meanwhile, some patients have been transferred to Malela and Kandiege Covid-19 isolation centres.
Muga said they have started giving residents the second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
"Let residents observe Covid-19 protocols at all times. The disease is real, and the virus is in our county. Residents must now be more careful," he added.
The Medicines Sans Frontiers (MSF), an organisation that supports the fight against Covid-19 infections has warned of the high infection rate of the disease in the county.
MSF Project Co-coordinator in the area Roshni Mahinda said an average of 30 per cent of patients tested for Covid-19 at the county referral hospital turn positive.
“The patients go to the hospital to seek medication over some other diseases but when tested, 30 per cent turn Covid-19 positive,” Mahinda said.
She said there is a need for sensitisation of the county residents on the prevention of the diseases.
As of Monday this week, the county had 704 cases of Covid-19 infections. Some of them have recovered, some are undergoing home-based care while others are admitted at the county referral.
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