PRESIDENT Hage Gaingob says Namibia never expected to be in the situation it is now experiencing due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The country is facing the worst of a pandemic that has claimed nearly 1,200 lives in Namibia to date, Gaingob said during a visit to Katutura Intermediate Hospital and Windhoek Central Hospital, where he assessed the availability of oxygen yesterday.
“We have the worst situation here. We never expected it,” Gaingob said.
Namibia registered 1,084 new coronavirus infections out of 2,597 test results in the last 24 hours, representing a 42% positivity rate.
Gaingob said the winter could help the virus spread rapidly during the third wave of increased infections the country is currently experiencing.
The president explained that his visit to state hospitals was the result of a cabinet meeting yesterday morning, during which options were discussed to address the lack of beds, facilities and oxygen at Windhoek health facilities.
“We ask for your own safety,” Gaingob told people who remain reckless and contradict health regulations aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.
Health and Social Services Minister Columbi Shangula accompanied Gaingob to a newly installed 20-ton oxygen tank in the respiratory ward of Katutura Intermediate Hospital.
They also visited an additional oxygen generator installed at Windhoek Central Hospital, which is expected to be operational this afternoon.
Initially, the hospital supplied oxygen only to Intaka Technology Namibia, which has been providing oxygen to hospitals across the country since 2011.
The newly installed generator, which pumps about 370 liters of oxygen per minute to the hospital’s Covid unit, was built in two weeks by the African Gas Solution and funded by the Social Security Commission.
To address the lack of free beds for patients with Covid-19, the health ministry has prepared 64 extra beds at Katutura Intermediate Hospital, near the hospital’s nursing home, Shangula said.
The extra beds are already full as patients continue to flood hospitals for medical care.
According to data from Covid-19 on Monday, announced by the Ministry of Health, 516 patients were hospitalized with Covid-19 in Namibia, 262 of which were in Windhoek. Of the 516 patients, 90 are treated in intensive care units.
As a result of the fact that private and public hospitals do not have enough beds to accommodate all the seriously ill, patients wait at home hoping to get an open bed in each facility, and some have traveled all the way to Rundu to get a place in a hospital.
Shangula explained that Namibia and India have similarities in the level of preparedness for the Covid-19 situation, especially in terms of oxygen supply.
According to media reports, medical oxygen in India has been in acute shortage as the country is battling growing Covid-19 infections.
A number of hospitals in this country lacked oxygen, and patients were confused about oxygen cylinders, sometimes in vain. This month, Namibia announced that Namibia is in almost the same situation as India, leaving health workers to choose between life and death.
Shangula explained that the issue of oxygen is not the responsibility of the government, as hospitals have had oxygen supplies at all times, but suddenly the number of patients in need of hospitalization, followed by oxygen, has increased.
“Well, we were in the same situation as India. When India started a little earlier, we followed suit. What we never expected was not the level of infections, but the level of patients who needed oxygen from last year. March, “he said.
He said the need for oxygen has put pressure on available supplies from the private sector, which has reached a stage of overcapacity.
“Now they have to import from outside to deliver to us,” Shangula added.
Windhoek-based infectious disease specialist Dr. Gordon Cupid warned yesterday that the third wave of the pandemic would kill hundreds, if not thousands, if the current trend continues.
“People should leave home only for basic activities and stop all social events completely,” he urged.
Last week, Cupid told Namibia that Namibia’s measures to call doctors and nurses and temporarily create additional infrastructure to accommodate the influx of patients from Kovid were not enough.
He believes Namibia is at the rising end of the pandemic curve, which means that anyone who has been infected in the last week or two will still be hospitalized in the next week or two.
“I would say this for the following reasons: patients are not allowed to go to bed with oxygen as much as they need to. Our intensive care units are full.
“Our oxygen supply is strained and even patients who are on oxygen in a hospital often do not get enough oxygen because the supply is not enough,” he said.
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