Gift of Oxygen

Yet again, for the Rotary Club of Thimphu, the season of giving is here. This time it is our belief that we have done one of our most meaningful humanitarian services to date - gift of oxygen.

Yesterday morning at about 10AM, a motley of Club Members gathered at the Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital in Thimphu - to donate and handover 17 units of Oxygen Concentrators to the officials of the JDWNRH. Personally, this project has been most gratifying - I mean supplying oxygen to the weak and the frail and the dying - what can be better?

Gift of life: 17 units of Oxygen Concentrators - all set to be donated to JDWNRH

According to reports, the JDWNRH had only 4 of these machines - with our supplement of 17 more, few lives should certainly be saved. That too in the comfort of their homes - because what we supplied are the portable variety - that which can be taken home so that patients do not need to spend uncomfortable days and weeks at the hospital.

What are Oxygen Concentrators

Oxygen concentrators are widely used for provision of oxygen in healthcare applications, especially where liquid or pressurized oxygen is too dangerous or inconvenient.

An oxygen concentrator takes in air and removes nitrogen from it, leaving an oxygen enriched gas for use by people requiring medical oxygen due to low oxygen levels in their blood. Oxygen concentrators utilize a molecular sieve to adsorb gases and operate on the principle of rapid pressure swing absorption of atmospheric nitrogen onto zeolite minerals and then venting the nitrogen. This type of adsorption system is therefore functionally a nitrogen scrubber leaving the other atmospheric gases to pass through. This leaves oxygen as the primary gas remaining.

Portable oxygen concentrator

What the Club supplied to the Jigme Dorji National Referral Hospital, Thimphu under this donor-funded project is the portable variety of oxygen concentrators that typically plug into an electrical outlet.

The principal purpose of this donation is to meet the growing demand from the home based users. The hospital will loan out these concentrators so that the congestion in the hospital treatment room can be freed, for better healthcare service.