Inspired by FREO2, the next generation of doctors challenges the UN to invest in oxygen.

When a group of medical students from across the globe gathered to learn about the oxygen access crisis and its tremendous burden on our world’s health systems, they felt compelled to act. Each year, The Global Alliance of Medical Excellence, (GAME) unites medical students from universities across Asia, Europe and North America to discuss key priorities for our world’s future health workforce. 

This year, the GAME conference explored responses to the pandemic and what they can reveal about global health inequity. FREO2 co-founders Dr David Peake and Dr Bryn Sobott, as well as Coordinator of the Every Breath Counts Coalition, Leith Greenslade were invited by GAME to start a conversation with the students about the global oxygen access gap.

The students learned that the COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered a long ignored public health crisis: pneumonia. For many delegates, it was the first time they understood that pneumonia, a highly treatable illness in their own health settings, remains a world health emergency priority in low resource settings.

Many students from Australia, England and North America were shocked to learn about the devastating impact of pneumonia on doctors worldwide, who were pleading on behalf of their patients (often children and babies) for medical oxygen that just wasn’t there. Some of these students had witnessed first hand the agonising moral dilemma faced by many young doctors trying to fairly distribute finite health resources – but were unaware that this crisis had been playing out for decades in low-resource settings around the world.

Together with FREO2 and the Every Breath Counts Coalition, the students of GAME produced an advocacy statement calling on the delegates of the 76th United Nations Assembly to act now and invest in oxygen:

We demand a better future for health care workers and their patients in low resource settings globally. By investing in oxygen now, you will not only save countless lives from the COVID-19 pandemic, but also build a foundation of essential medicine beyond the pandemic. As the number of patients rise and the number of oxygen tanks fall, the burden often falls on clinicians who must decide who receives treatment; who will live and who will die.

Fiorella Agama, a senior medical student from the University of Bologna spoke on behalf of the medical student community: “What is clear is that we must let the world know that no matter how well trained we are, no matter how passionate we are, we cannot save anyone without critical resources like oxygen”.

Lachlan Coman, a senior medical student from Monash University joins Fiorella this year in applying for a masters in Public Health. Together with five others, they have pursued additional public and global health training since the conference. Many of these students previously held aspirations to become surgeons or anesthetists, but now feel it is their duty as health workers to address global health inequalities and urgently drive systematic change. 

Professor Michelle Leech is the Head of the Monash University School of Medicine and convener of this year’s GAME transnational education initiative. She believes that the medical students were inspired by FREO2 and their dedication to address the oxygen crisis in a sustainable way. “This conference has really helped us prepare students to be safe and compassionate doctors” says Professor Leech. “They are very capable people and they realise that it’s going to take substantial policy change, investment and global commitment to equip them to drive real change, but they are up for it. I am really proud of this next generation of doctors”. 

Following the UN General Assembly at the Global COVID-19 Summit: Ending the Pandemic and Building Back Better, the oxygen community received some encouraging news: USAID has vowed to invest $50 million to expand access to oxygen. However, according to the Every Breath Counts Coalition, the current demand for medical oxygen in low-and-middle-income countries requires the equivalent of two million large oxygen cylinders per day, an annual cost of US $3 billion. 

FREO2 is honoured to be a voice of advocacy and is delighted to have been a part of making an impact on so many young doctors. “The global burden of childhood pneumonia is a multi-faceted problem and the solution requires a large and diverse skill set” says Dr David Peake, Co-founder of FREO2 Foundation, "right now is a critical time to focus the efforts of a large number of people from all areas, with young doctors being instrumental in enacting change”.

To read the students’ declaration, visit: https://7c57fc16-dd3d-4022-b671-5d97466376f3.filesusr.com/ugd/895009_7af9d1703b0246abbda66cd80c1d3744.pdf

By Nicoletta Snellen