Kenyan Doctor Gets Special Recognition from Bill Gates over Role in Saving Covid-19 Patients

A Kenyan doctor has earned praise from American billionaire and philanthropist Bill Gates over his role in the fight against Covid-19.

Gates, in his Heroes in the Field segment on YouTube and Gates Notes publication, lauded Bernard Olayo for his contribution in saving the lives of Covid-19 patients in Kenya through the provision of low-cost oxygen.

Gates termed Olayo’s innovation of Hewatele, a company that supplies medical oxygen in Kenyan hospitals a show of dedication.

“As Covid-19 spreads across Africa, healthcare facilities across the continent face shortages of basic medical supplies needed to treat the respiratory disease. Not only masks and ventilators buts something people in rich countries take for granted—oxygen.”

“This hero [Olayo] is playing a critical role in Kenya’s preparations to tackle Covid-19 by scaling up medical oxygen supplies that will be needed to keep the most critically ill patients alive,” Gates stated.

Hewatele was among companies that were approached by the government to supply more oxygen in hospitals in preparation for the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We were approached by the government to scale up the supply of oxygen. Oxygen is very critical most COVID patients if you give them oxygen early enough then you stop them from progressing into the most critical stage where they require ventilation,” said Olayo.

As a result, Olayo hired more professionals and set up plants in the major hospitals in a bid to lower the cost of production by half and increase reliability. 

 “In Kenya, oxygen costs about 13 times more than what it does in the US. The high cost was driven, in part, by a lack of competition. I decided to build oxygen plants at several of the busiest hospitals in the country, where demand is the highest, and reliable electricity for production is available. The oxygen is then sent out for delivery using a milkman model, with oxygen cylinders regularly dropped off at remote hospitals and clinics and the empty cylinders returned to be refilled,” he noted.

“The goal is that no health worker would ever have to make the painful decision that I did where you have to choose who lives or dies. It breaks your heart and no doctor should be put in such a situation,” he added.

Olayo is a world bank health specialist who holds a bachelor’s degree in Medicine from Moi University and a master’s in International Public Health from Harvard.