Fred de Sam Lazaro:
Bed space is almost always in short supply in public hospitals like this one in Uganda’s second largest city, Mbarara.
But a bigger, ever-present concern for veteran head nurse Adeodata Ahairwe is having a steady supply of oxygen to save this premature infant and so many others.
The lives of hundreds of patients every day in this Mbarara hospital depend on an uninterrupted supply of oxygen. In turn, the hospital’s oxygen plant depends on an uninterrupted supply of electricity. And, in Uganda, as in so many other countries, that is hardly guaranteed.
UNICEF says the scarcity or irregular supply of oxygen contributes to hundreds of thousands of child deaths every year. Along with drugs like antibiotics, oxygen therapy is critical in treating pneumonia, at 800,000 victims each year, the biggest killer of children under 5. Pneumonia is often found in severe malaria cases, like that of 9-year-old Fridah, who was brought here by her dad, Posanio Bazamanza.