From aid to investment: Bridging the Oxygen Access Gap in African Healthcare with Oxygen CoLab

In this episode of Voices of Africa, we speak with experts from the Oxygen CoLab about the urgent need to bridge the gap between oxygen production and patient access across Africa, otherwise known as the “Missing Middle”. Despite a surge in global investment into oxygen production during the COVID-19 pandemic, 91% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa still lack access to medical oxygen—a gap that Dr Carina King, Sheila Baganya, and Hilda Bugingo argue cannot be closed by equipment donations alone. They propose a shift toward enabling local oxygen SMEs to deliver oxygen through service-based models. They provide the equipment, supply, maintenance and training needed to ensure oxygen is available 24/7, taking the burden of oxygen supply away from health facilities. . By investing in these local respiratory SMEs, and creating the market conditions for their scale, the continent can not only move from aid to investment, it can transform oxygen from a scarce commodity into a reliable utility, ensuring that life-saving care is accessible at every bedside.