Bringing Medical Oxygen Compressor Training to Africa with Build Health International

I’ve been with RIX for about fifteen years—long enough to see firsthand how much of what we build ultimately supports healthcare infrastructure across Africa. Over the years, we’ve shipped oxygen compressors throughout the continent, where they are expected to operate reliably for years and often serve as a critical link in the medical oxygen supply chain, particularly in rural and remote areas.

That is not an easy assignment for any piece of equipment. Operating conditions can be harsh, electrical power may be inconsistent, spare parts are rarely close at hand, and technicians with specialized compressor experience can be difficult to find. Yet these machines need to keep running because, in many cases, a hospital’s ability to fill oxygen cylinders depends on them.

For a long time, RIX’s involvement in that journey largely ended when the compressor left our facility. From there, day-to-day operation and maintenance fell to local technicians—often people who had never received formal training on the equipment or had the opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of the compressors they were being asked to maintain.

That is particularly challenging with an oxygen compressor, which can be one of the least forgiving pieces of equipment in the system. Cleanliness matters. Introducing oil, grease, or other contaminants into a high-pressure oxygen system can create a serious safety hazard. Basic practices such as wearing clean gloves, keeping food away from the work area, and maintaining dedicated, clean tools and workspaces are extremely important when working on high-pressure oxygen equipment. But none of those practices are obvious if no one has had the opportunity to teach you why they matter.

Too often, we hear about an oxygen compressor that has gone down—not because someone broke it trying to repair it, but because no one was willing to touch it. Without the proper knowledge and training, attempting a repair can represent a risk a technician simply isn’t comfortable taking. So instead, the machine continues to run until eventually it doesn’t.

When that happens, the consequences extend well beyond a piece of equipment being out of service. A hospital may lose its ability to fill cylinders, and ultimately patients may lose access to the oxygen they need. That is not a sustainable model if medical oxygen is going to become the same reliable, everyday healthcare resource in these regions that we expect it to be elsewhere in the world.

RIX offers factory training at our headquarters in Benicia, California, but bringing technicians from sub-Saharan Africa to California for training simply isn’t practical in most cases. At the same time, we had crossed paths with Build Health International (BHI) for years. Their teams regularly encountered RIX equipment in the field and had even taken the initiative to develop repair guides and instructional videos for our equipment—freely available resources they created because they saw the need.

Eventually, it became clear that working together with BHI gave us an opportunity to bring RIX training to the people who needed it, rather than expecting them to come to us.

Today, that effort is taking shape at BHI’s training center at Kigali College of Rwanda Polytechnic, in collaboration with the Rwanda Biomedical Centre (RBC). The facility includes two RIX compressors—a 2PS and a 2V3—along with an operating PSA oxygen generation system and a complete distribution system. Technicians can learn hands-on, using the same types of equipment and systems they will encounter when they return to hospitals and oxygen plants in the field.

For RIX, this is about more than teaching someone how to repair a compressor. It is about helping build the local knowledge and confidence needed to safely maintain these systems for years to come. It’s a program we’re proud to be part of, and one that we hope helps keep medical oxygen flowing wherever it’s needed.

Read the full press release here