Medical facilities on islands in the Pacific Rim and Australasia are being urged to switch from conventional oxygen cylinders to Oxair’s Medical Oxygen Pressure Swing Adsorption (PSA) automated system because of the safety advantages, lower energy consumption, reduced maintenance bills and to eliminate the inconvenience and cost of shipping gas bottles. 
BMC Hospital Systems has installed around 20 of Oxair’s PSA units in hospitals in the Philippines, one of the latest at San Francisco Doctors Hospital in Agusan del Sur, to ensure safe and consistent delivery of the highest quality oxygen for patients.
A Western Australia-based manufacturer of gas process systems, Oxair says that its cost-saving alternative to transporting this life-saving gas in cylinders allows healthcare facilities to have a safer, more secure and independent source of supply.
Oxair’s system provides huge cost savings and convenience for Philippines hospitals, BMC hospital systems’ division manager Jason Dampor says. “It eliminates residual wastage on un-consumed tanks, meaning additional savings, and for patients it ensures clean and high quality oxygen delivery free from rust, as conventional tanks in the Philippines are made of carbon steel and prone to rust.”
The Philippines is made up of 7,100 islands in a region prone to extreme weather events such as typhoons, so independence from outsourcing oxygen is crucial to maintaining supplies.
Traditional canisters with 1800 PSI are unsanitary and can be very dangerous inside hospital premises, especially when being moved from room to room.
Oxair’s Oxygen Generator can be engineered to integrate with any existing system, or designed from scratch. It reduces manpower handling cylinders, saves room space and is immediately available at the patient’s bedside.
High purity oxygen is essential for the health and safety of patients and staff alike – the Oxair system delivers constant oxygen of 95.5 percent purity through PSA filtration.
PSA is a unique process that separates oxygen from compressed air, conditioning the gas and then filtering it before storing it in a buffer tank to be used directly by the end user on demand.
The Vaiola Hospital on the remote tropical island of Vavaʻu in Tonga recently switched to Oxair’s Oxygen Generator as a standalone unit to supply the island’s oxygen requirements, even though it already had an automated system in place to avoid having to ship the gas from New Zealand.
“The Oxair Oxygen Generator is running very well providing a reliable and sustainable supply of oxygen to our outer islands,” says Vaiola’s biomedical engineer Semisi Finau. “The system has helped us deliver an increased level of good quality healthcare to the people of Tonga with no more delays or shortages of oxygen supplies to the islands.”
Oxair has also had automated oxygen units installed in Indonesia, as a cost-effective alternative to the expense of shipping in traditional cylinders. Oxair PSA units are providing healthcare facilities in the country a reliable, independent source of supply which accommodates all their oxygen needs at a fraction of the cost of purchased oxygen.
“Our Medical Oxygen PSAs offer peace of mind as they are registered medical devices under the ISO 13485 standard, making them fully compliant for use in all hospitals and healthcare facilities,” Oxair’s Australasian spokesperson David Cheeseman says. “They offer quick payback, greater flexibility, reliability and security of supply, especially crucial to hospitals in remote locations.”
