ISLAMABAD: Two non-governmental organizations backed by Pakistani-American doctors are delivering free oxygen essentials to Pakistanis’ homes as the number of confirmed coronaviruses cases crossed 220,000 this week, charity officials and doctors have said.
The World Health Organization (WHO) warned last month that the world faced a shortage of oxygen concentrators as the number of worldwide cases of coronavirus infection exceeded the 10 million mark.
Family member of COVID-19 patient receiving an oxygen cyclinder from HANDS NGO in Islamabad on June 27 2020. (AN Photo)
At the current rate of about one million new virus cases a week, the world needs 620,000 cubic meters of oxygen a day — the equivalent of 88,000 large cylinders, the WHO said. The growing demand of oxygen cylinders has either outstripped supplies, or escalated prices to at least three to four times the usual.
In Pakistan, too, patients have struggled to find oxygen essentials like pulse oximeters and oxygen concentrators, devices that produce medical oxygen by extracting and purifying it from the air.
Two NGOs, HANDS and AlKhidmat, have joined hands with the Association of Physicians of Pakistan Descent of North America (APPNA) to deliver free oxygen to people’s homes in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Multan, Lahore and Karachi.
NGO worker carrying oxygen cyclinder to deliver to a COVID-19 patient in Islamabad on June 27 2020. (AN Photo)
Dr. Aisha Zafar, chair of APPNA’s social welfare and disaster relief committee, told Arab News the organization had spent $475,000 on providing personal protective equipment to Pakistanis and had now moved on to delivering oxygen cylinders and concentrators to people’s homes as hospitals had reached capacity.
“There are not enough beds in the hospitals,” Zafar said, “Anyone who goes to hospital, their first biggest need is the oxygen cylinder — and that’s why this thing [home delivery of oxygen cylinders] came up ... [because] patients can be managed at home.”
Zafar said APPNA had collected $1.1 million in private donations in the US, Canada and Pakistan.
With the backing of APPNA funds, HANDS has been supplying oxygen cylinders and concentrators to critical patients and providing them online doctors’ services as well, the chairman of the charity said.
“We have been providing oxygen to people at their doorsteps with all accessories,” HANDS chairman Faisal Jamil told Arab News as he left his office to transport a gas cylinder to a critical patient on the outskirts of Islamabad.
AlKhidmat Foundation is doing similar work, delivering supplemental oxygen to patients for free and also conducting COVID-19 tests.
“Just in Lahore, we have 200 oxygen cylinders available for critical COVID-19 patients for free. Once a patient recovers, we withdraw the cylinder, refill it and provide it to another needy patient,” Shoaib Hashmi, the media coordinator for AlKhidmat, said.
Among those recently in need of oxygen was retired government servant Naeem Khan who tried, and failed, for a whole week to arrange oxygen for his wife and daughter whose blood oxygen levels had dropped significantly after contracting COVID-19.
“These things aren’t available anywhere in the public or private sector. Oxygen, which is a basic need, isn’t available in the market,” said Khan who was finally delivered an oxygen concentrator to his home by HANDS. “The agency was so responsive and quick to provide the oxygen concentrator that I can’t explain it in words.”
