KENYA – Topcare Limited, a holding company running healthcare businesses in Kenya , has partnered with Oxygen Hub to inaugurate a twin oxygen plant in Nakuru County in an effort to increase medical oxygen reserve capacity amid rising COVID-19 cases.
Topcare Limited provides comprehensive primary healthcare and specialized services ranging from diagnostics, surgical packages and outreach services to wellness and occupational health services. In addition, the company runs medium level facilities in Kajiado and Nakuru counties in Kenya.
Topcare has partnered with Oxygen Hub as a franchisee to roll out oxygen production in peri-urban and rural areas amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Topcare-Oxygen Hub will also deliver oxygen to hospitals on planned schedules to boost oxygen availability in hospitals.
Topcare-Oxygen Hub will apply modern management systems to improve efficiency in oxygen production and delivery. The target will be small-medium sized hospitals which have historically been neglected in oxygen supply yet the facilities attend to majority of patients , some of whom require critical care.
The collaboration comes at a time when the COVID-19 outbreak has significantly increased the number of patients in need of medical oxygen in hospitals to help address oxygen gaps in specialized healthcare services offered in both the private and public sector.
Topcare Limited and Oxygen Hub have partnered to set up additional oxygen plants in different counties in Kenya. In addition, Oxygen Hub has been supporting African entrepreneurs to start and expand Oxygen plants across Africa.
Subsequently, Topcare recently teamed up with Oxygen Hub to launch an oxygen plant in Nakuru County which becomes the second twin plant the company has opened following the first one in Kitengela, Kajiado County in Kenya.
The newly inaugurated plant installed in Nakuru can produce up to 200 cylinders of oxygen per day to strengthen various hospitals’ response to the highly contagious coronavirus by ensuring that patients have timely access to quality and timely care while closing the oxygen supply gap in Kenya.
The twin oxygen plant will supply life-saving medical oxygen to healthcare facilities in both Nakuru and the entire Rift Valley Region in an effort to fill the oxygen supply gap across the regions as well as accelerate access to reliable, quality oxygen.
Oxygen Hub Interim CEO Herma Gebru explained that Africa had a shortage of medical oxygen even before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, noting that the need for medical oxygen will continue post COVID-19 since only about 40 percent of the demand is currently being met.
Oxygen Hub is an initiative of the Institute for Transformative Technologies, one of the world’s leading organizations focused on technology led services for low income communities, that was set up to increase medical oxygen supply to underserved peri-urban areas and small/mid-sized towns.
“Oxygen Hub has 10 plants across Kenya, Ethiopia and Nigeria with a major goal of expanding medical oxygen production and developing long term sustainable infrastructure to scale up medical oxygen availability,” Herma Gebru added.
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