Oxygen – essential for life, and especially vital to have available if you need hospitalization. In the Hospital of Hope (HoH) in northern Togo, the capacity of the hospital’s oxygen concentration system was inadequate to keep up with the increasing patient population. Doctors had to choose who would receive life-giving oxygen – a choice no doctor wants to make.
In 2024, PowerQuest Worldwide (PQW), a ministry that “serves mission hospital doctors, nurses, and technicians in the developing world with engineering solutions,” tested and shipped a larger oxygen concentrator. Oxygen vents and piping were sent for emergency, maternity and patient care areas. Nine months later, HoH maintenance staff placed the unit and connected the electrical power. PQW technicians and SonSet Solutions technician Earl Hartwig ran copper pipes to the oxygen outlets through walls and ceilings while active patient areas were shuffled to provide work access.
Excellent patient care enhances the spiritual care provided by chaplains from a multilingual team who visit with every patient and their family members. These chaplains pray with them, share the gospel, provide audio Bibles, and conduct Bible studies. For example, a chaplain repeatedly visited the family of a premature infant during his long stay in NICU. They were surprised to find that the baby’s father’s uncle and the chaplain had been friends in religious school in Burkina Faso. The baby’s father asked why the chaplain had changed religion and become a Christian. The chaplain explained that his relationship with God through Jesus gave him assurance of acceptance by God, something which he never had before. The young father then expressed his desire to follow Jesus too!
The work of several organizations, including SonSet Solutions, improved HoH’s oxygen capacity to handle the needs of malaria and surgery patients and premature infants. Trust built by HoH’s excellent care for Togo and surrounding countries continues to open the door to the gospel in West Africa.
By Sandy Shortt, March 2025