What is the name of your organization?
OxyCare Uganda
What is the name of your solution?
Life-Saving Oxygen for All
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Bridging the oxygen gap—local generation, smart distribution, and renewable energy for remote healthcare
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
Pakwach, West Nile region, Uganda
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
Uganda
What type of organization is your solution team?
Nonprofit
Film your elevator pitch.
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What specific problem are you solving?
Access to quality healthcare is one of the most critical needs in the West Nile region, mainly due to its remote location and poor road infrastructure. One of the most significant challenges is the inability of health facilities to refill their oxygen cylinders, including the maintenance and repair of oxygen concentrators, leading to increased morbidity and mortality, especially among children and birthing mothers. For example, in Uganda, about 2 out of every 10 women develop life-threatening complications, many of whom could be treated with oxygen therapy. Additionally, about 13% of children admitted with severe pneumonia have hypoxemia (PATH, 2021; UNIPH, 2023; ISER, 2021). Through OxyCare Uganda, we introduced a sustainable solution that circumvents the need to refill oxygen cylinders and repair and maintain oxygen concentrators to make oxygen available for medical emergencies. The solution is lasting as it builds capacity by training end users on how to properly handle oxygen equipment and by training hospital-based technicians on how to maintain and repair their oxygen concentrators. This empowers health facilities to maintain functional equipment independently, ensuring they are always prepared for emergencies, even without external support.
What is your solution?
OxyCare Uganda is a community-based biomedical engineering initiative that ensures continuous access to medical oxygen in remote health facilities. We recruit, train, and deploy biomedical technicians to maintain and repair oxygen concentrators and related equipment in hard-to-reach areas.
Our solution works by creating a decentralized network of skilled technicians who regularly visit rural hospitals to service oxygen devices, ensuring they function optimally when needed. We train and equip each technician with a toolkit and a preventive maintenance schedule to reduce equipment downtime.
The core technology involved includes oxygen concentrators, which extract oxygen from ambient air using pressure swing adsorption (PSA). Our team ensures these devices remain clean, calibrated, and functional by troubleshooting common issues like clogged filters, faulty valves, or electrical faults and solar-powered oxygen plant technology that will allow on-site refilling.
We complement this with a mobile reporting system that tracks equipment status, technician visits, and repair outcomes in real time, enabling data-driven decision-making and accountability.
OxyCare Uganda ensures that oxygen machines in remote hospitals are always working by training local experts to keep them running and using technology to track and improve our impact.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
OxyCare Uganda serves vulnerable patients in remote and underserved communities, especially newborns, children, and individuals with respiratory conditions who rely on medical oxygen to survive. These populations often seek care in rural health facilities where oxygen equipment is either non-functional or completely unavailable due to poor maintenance and a lack of skilled biomedical technicians.
We also directly train and support frontline healthcare workers in these areas who struggle to provide effective treatment without reliable medical oxygen. Many of these health facilities are overlooked due to their remote locations, making timely maintenance and technical support rare or nonexistent.
Our solution addresses this gap by deploying trained biomedical technicians to maintain and repair oxygen concentrators in these rural facilities. As a result, patients receive timely and life-saving oxygen therapy, reducing preventable deaths from conditions like pneumonia, birth asphyxia, and COVID-19 complications. Healthcare workers are empowered to deliver better care with functioning equipment they can trust.
Ultimately, our work ensures that no life is lost simply because a hospital in a remote area lacked working oxygen equipment, transforming healthcare outcomes for communities that have long been left behind.
