![]() ![]() When a hospital draws more and more liquid oxygen from those tanks, the super-cold liquid can seep further into the vaporizing coils where liquid oxygen turns to gas.īranson said some ice is normal, but a lot of ice can cause valves on the device to freeze in place. But as covid patients filling ICUs were given oxygen through ventilators or nasal tubes, some hospitals began to see ice form over the equipment that converts liquid oxygen into a gas. To take up less space, oxygen is often stored as a liquid around minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit, about as cold as the surface of Neptune. ![]() Last spring, New York, New Jersey and Connecticut faced a challenge similar to what is now unfolding in Los Angeles, said Robert Karcher, a vice president of contract services for Acurity, a group purchasing organization that worked with many hospitals during that surge. At one point, when the company’s usual supplier fell through, they were hauling oxygen from Houston, more than a 10-hour drive each way.īranson has been sounding the alarm about logistical limitations on critical care since the SARS pandemic nearly 20 years ago, when he and others surveyed experts about the specific equipment and infrastructure needed during a future pandemic. In November, he said, he was answering calls in the middle of the night from customers worried about oxygen supplies. He provides oxygen to several temporary hospitals set up specifically to treat people with covid. “It’s been nuts, absolutely nuts,” said Esteban Trejo, general manager of Syoxsa, an industrial and medical gas distributor based in El Paso. Even nasal cannulas, the tubing used to deliver oxygen, are now running low. And in some cases, vendors that supply the oxygen have struggled to get enough of the gas to hospitals. There is also pressure on the availability of both the portable cylinders that hold oxygen and the concentrators that pull oxygen from the air. Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing. ![]() “You can completely - literally, completely - shut down the entire hospital supply if that happens,” said Rich Branson, a respiratory therapist with the University of Cincinnati and editor-in-chief of the journal Respiratory Care. In some hospitals that pipe oxygen to patients’ rooms, the massive volume of cold liquid oxygen is freezing the equipment needed to deliver it, which can block the system. The strain in those areas is caused by multiple weak links in the pandemic supply chain. That has stressed the infrastructure for delivering the gas to hospitals and their patients. But covid damages the lungs, and the crush of patients in hot spots such as Los Angeles the Navajo Nation El Paso, Texas and in New York last spring have needed high concentrations of it. Oxygen, which makes up 21% of the Earth’s air, isn’t running short. County Emergency Medical Services Agency. “Everybody is worried about what’s going to happen in the next week or so,” said Cathy Chidester, director of the L.A. Some hospitals are having to delay releasing patients as they don’t have enough oxygen equipment to send home with them. It’s gotten so bad that Los Angeles County officials are warning paramedics to conserve it. ![]()
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