To ensure effective management of the facilities and improved health delivery, UNICEF also trained about sixty health workers on how to manage and treat Pneumonia and Hypoxemia, especially in Children.

The training which lasted for four days saw health workers including doctors and nurses taught how to make use of oxygen.

A Health Specialist with the UNICEF Enugu Field Office, Dr Ifeyinwa Anyanyo during a workshop at Osbourne Hotels, Abakaliki explained that the workshop aimed at stepping down training on in-patient management of community-acquired pneumonia in children and hypoxemia management in children

He said the organization has begun the construction for the installation of an oxygen plant in Ebonyi state.

“As you know UNICEF, the core mandate is to advocate for the rights of women and children.
We have started the construction work for the installation of the oxygen plant in the General teaching hospital Abakaliki.

“As soon as that is completed the oxygen plant will be installed, we also have feature plans to train biomedical engineers to handle the plants to ensure that the medical oxygens are provided in the right manner and that the equipment is maintained and serviced as at when due”.

Dr Anyanyo said, “This training was convened for healthcare workers across the health facilities in the state, the tertiary, secondary, mission, and private health facilities that provide healthcare to children on pneumonia and hypoxemia management”.

“The healthcare workers consist of doctors and nurses that work in those health centres. They are here to build their capacity in quality delivery of health management in terms of the provision of medical oxygen in health facilities, treatment of hypoxemia, and development of pneumonia following the federal ministry of health, pediatric association of Nigeria pulled algorithm in the treatment of pneumonia.

The state Commissioner of Health, Dr Daniel Umezurike commended Unicef for the choice of Ebonyi as a pilot state for the oxygen scale-up program.

“I want to thank UNICEF for selecting Ebonyi state as one of the pilot states for the oxygen scale-ups. They have also gone ahead to have this seminar to teach us how to manage pneumonia and hypoxemia. I know that this is a life-saving issue because the survey we did in Ebonyi state shows that the three major death is malaria, diarrhoea disease,s and pneumonia.

“This pneumonia to me and from all indications is one of the diseases that is under-diagnosis, some health workers don’t even use a telescope to examine the chest of the patient so at some times they will just be treating malaria and typhoid and the patient or the child will be going down, so this lecture to me is very timely and a good one.

“The issue of scaling up oxygen started during the challenge of covid it was disco that oxygen therapy is one aspect that is underutilized, even the oxygen most hospitals don’t have, the electricity is very poor, and sometimes even if it is available the timing is not guaranteed. I want to thank Unicef for taking the bull by the horn by scaling up oxygen therapy in the country and that is why they selected one state per geopolitical zone and Ebonyi state is the first state in the southeast”.

On her part, Mrs Florence Oluwemida with the Oxygen for life initiative advocated for staffers in the health care facilities.

“From this workshop, we found out that many of the hospitals don’t have the equipment and those that have the equipment don’t know. So we have impacted knowledge to them.

“The main challenge is the availability of all these things; pulse oximeters must be available, especially in the pediatric ward, labour ward, and children’s emergency.

“Then the oxygen concentrator must be available because oxygen concentrator is cheaper, it absorbs the atmospheric oxygen into the concentrator, and inside the concentrator is the process of removing all other things that are not needed.

“Also, there should be re-training of trainers, and there should be a mentor-mentee coordinator, we need staff strength in our hospitals the doctors, and nurses must be available”.