02 Africa:
The Gift of Oxygen

Less than half of the hospitals in Africa have any oxygen, which is critical for surviving COVID-19 and many other acute illnesses. Providing reliable sources of oxygen is one of the best ways YOU can help save lives today and build a sustainable future for tomorrow.

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Oxygen is critical for basic surgeries, the treatment of many acute illnesses like pneumonia, and now for the care of people suffering from COVID-19. In Africa the supply of this essential medicine is grossly inadequate; less than half of all African hospitals have any oxygen. We can begin to change all that.

The Need for Oxygen: The Breath of Africa

African Mission Healthcare is launching the 02 Africa campaign to raise $1 million to support the production of oxygen plants at four hospitals in Africa.

Jacqueline is the 47-year-old breadwinner for her family in Kenya.  Her son lost his job because of the pandemic and her grandchild required specialized medical care.  When she fell sick with COVID-19 and was admitted to the intensive care unit at Kijabe Hospital, her oxygen levels were extremely low. Access to high-flow oxygen at the hospital saved her life. But very few hospitals in all of Africa could have treated her successfully and returned her to her loved ones. You can help change that reality and bring life-saving oxygen to more patients like Jacqueline.

Dr. Marty Makary, Professor of Surgery and Director of the Johns Hopkins Pancreatic Islet Transplant Center and NYT best-selling author of “Unaccountable” and “The Price We Pay,” lauded the AMH O2Africa campaign.  

"Oxygen is the most high-impact intervention in the history of medicine,” Makary said. “It is, by far, the most important single resource a hospital can offer its patients—and the single most needed life-saving therapy for hospitals. Thanks to this initiative from African Mission Healthcare, hundreds of thousands of African patients—from mothers in delivery to children with pneumonia and adults with COVID—will gain access to this life-saving medical necessity, and be able to live where they otherwise would not.”

Dr. Jon Fielder, Chief Executive and Co-Founder of AMH is currently experiencing the impacts of the pandemic firsthand as a member of the AIC Kijabe Hospital’s COVID clinical response team. 

Dr. Fielder has served as a missionary doctor in Africa since 2002 and observes, “There are patients throughout Africa whose lives are at risk (and sometimes lost) because hospitals either do not have enough or do not have any oxygen.” 

Only 50% of hospitals and 20% of all health facilities in Africa have oxygen.

The Solution: The Gift of Breath

We are launching the 02 Africa campaign to raise $1 million to support the production of oxygen plants at four hospitals in Africa.

Without oxygen, many people suffer and die from preventable causes. You can help change that reality. 

We plan to install oxygen generation plants at four of our partner hospitals (like you would expect in an American hospital) so oxygen can be delivered via pipes from the wall in high volume whenever it is needed.

While extremely cost-effective, these projects are well beyond a hospital’s means. Most oxygen projects cost between $150-250,000. The projects are complex, requiring specialized skills and planning. In order to save as many lives as possible, we need to start building these projects now.

The need is critical. Your opportunity for impact is immediate.  

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Oxygen can reduce the risk of death by 35% for children with pneumonia, yet it is one of the least available "essential medicines" identified by the World Health Organization.

The Impact: Saving Lives Today & Building for Tomorrow

Adding oxygen plants to well-functioning mission hospitals will have a significant impact now and for many years to come.

"The cost of life-saving oxygen is almost all in building and maintaining the infrastructure, as the primary raw material is air," observed Mark Gerson, co-founder of AMH. "That means the ROI of building oxygen capacity—even including the necessary equipment—is astonishingly high. Building oxygen capacity at hospitals like Maua will save COVID patients and the lives of many other people suffering from acute illnesses who desperately need to breathe. Building these oxygen plants will help save lives today and well into the future.” 

We have already begun our first oxygen project at Maua Methodist Hospital in central Kenya. Established in 1928, Maua is a 100-bed referral hospital and teaching center that provides essential care for a community of over 600,000 people. An initial investment of $250k at Maua will enable the hospital to care for more than 80,000 additional patients over the next 20 years for an average cost of less than $6. 

The total campaign will enable care for about 350,000 additional patients for less than $6 each over the same 20 year period.

What Your Legacy of Generosity Means

Will you be part of bringing life-saving oxygen to the people of Africa?

AMH will immediately invest $360,000 made possible by the generosity of co-founder Mark Gerson and his wife Rabbi Erica Gerson, who are challenging YOU to join them in raising $1 million to save lives and build sustainable oxygen sources.

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