World Oxygen Day: Why Oxygen Must Be at the Heart of Essential Emergency and Critical Care
On 2nd October, the world marks World Oxygen Day, a reminder that one of the simplest, most essential medicines is still out of reach for billions of people.
The Lancet Global Health Commission on Medical Oxygen Security estimates that 5 billion people lack reliable access to safe, affordable medical oxygen. That’s two-thirds of the world’s population without a treatment that can mean the difference between life and death.
Oxygen: More Than a COVID-19 Crisis
The pandemic exposed oxygen shortages, but the need runs far deeper. Oxygen is vital for critically ill patients of all ages:
🌍 Newborns struggling to breathe
🌍 Children with pneumonia or sepsis
🌍 Mothers with heavy bleeding after childbirth
🌍 Adults with trauma, heart failure, or complications of non-communicable diseases
Oxygen is one of the most widely used emergency medicines, yet in many hospitals, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, it is unavailable, unreliable, or unaffordable.
EECC and the Basics That Save Lives
At EECC Global, we work to make sure Essential Emergency and Critical Care (EECC) is available everywhere. EECC is a set of simple, proven actions that all critically ill patients should receive in every hospital.
Oxygen sits at the core of this package. Alongside checking vital signs, giving intravenous fluids, and keeping airways open, oxygen therapy stabilises patients when their survival hangs in the balance.
Our stories show this again and again:
💛 Baby Dayana survived pneumonia because oxygen was started immediately when her dangerously low levels were spotted.
💛 Farmer Afikiwe’s breathing improved within minutes when oxygen therapy and airway suctioning were applied in a rural hospital.
💛 Rozalia, a young mother, received oxygen while being treated for heavy bleeding after childbirth, helping her survive to return home to her newborn twins.
These are not extraordinary interventions. They are the basics, but they only work when oxygen is there.
The Oxygen Gap
The Commission highlights three main barriers to access:
💨 Infrastructure: unreliable electricity and distribution systems make it hard to generate and deliver oxygen.
💰 Cost: in many places, oxygen remains out of reach for families and health facilities.
👩⚕️ Workforce: too few health workers are trained to deliver oxygen safely and effectively.
Bridging these gaps requires investment and planning, and above all, integration of oxygen into everyday care, not just as a pandemic response.
A Call to Action
This World Oxygen Day, the message is simple: no patient should die for lack of oxygen.
To make that a reality, governments and health systems must:
🌍 Include oxygen in national health strategies for both infectious and non-communicable diseases
🌍 Equip hospitals and health centres with reliable oxygen supplies
🌍 Train staff in EECC so they know when and how to use oxygen to save lives
Oxygen is not optional. It is one of the most cost-effective, life-saving medicines we have.
At EECC Global, we are working towards embedding oxygen and other EECC interventions into health systems worldwide, so that whether a patient is in Dar es Salaam, Delhi, or Darlington, they receive the essential care that could save their life.