What staff are needed to run a PSA oxygen plant?

How many people a plant needs depends on how it is used. The briefing note on oxygen plant staffing written by Build Health International for the Global Fund (11 April 2025) names four variables: the type of plant (piping, cylinder filling or both), the operating plan, the size of the plant and how often the cylinder-filling manifolds must be changed over.

How many operators

WHO's Foundations of medical oxygen systems (2023) gives the same picture for oxygen generator plants: operators on site 24/7, qualified technicians on call 24/7 and a day-shift manager of operations if operations are large. It adds that repurposing guards or otherwise allocated staff is not appropriate. An answer by Assist International on Open Critical Care suggests, at minimum, one certified or qualified electrical, mechanical or biomedical technician to operate the plant, one or two labourers if cylinders are filled, and a certified engineer if the staff will also maintain it, with total numbers based on the planned operating hours, typically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Roles and qualifications

• Oxygen plant operator (Global Fund, 2025): a biomedical technician, electrician, existing maintenance staff or someone with 2 to 3 years of experience in medical equipment. The operator completes the daily maintenance checklist, cleans and makes minor repairs such as replacing defective valves, manages cylinders and manifold changeovers, keeps the spare parts and oxygen tools inventory and requests repairs when necessary.
• Supervising engineer (Global Fund, 2025): an engineer with a degree from a four-year university, typically a biomedical engineer, who may supervise several hospitals' plants, manages the service contract, budgets for and orders spare parts, reviews the operators' reports and logs, and carries out more advanced maintenance. The note asks that operators' daily checklists are checked by a qualified engineer.

Training

WHO's interim technical specifications for PSA oxygen plants (8 June 2020, superseded by WHO's technical specifications of 31 December 2024) stated that the staff operating and maintaining these plants require specialized training. They listed on-site training for installation, use and maintenance as preferable, asked the manufacturer to set out the maintenance routines that match the facility's own staff, and reserved advanced maintenance for a third-party technician trained and authorised by the manufacturer. WHO (2023) asks for a training plan stating its content, number of days and persons to be trained, with trainers certified by the manufacturer.

Global Fund commissioning guidelines (28 August 2024) ask the supplier to give the hospital's technical staff basic training, with proof, covering the operation and technical theory of the plant and all its components, how to engage the supplier and service provider, actions that would void the warranty, and the service tasks the hospital staff will be responsible for. The 2025 staffing note lists operator training, management training, training of trainers, refresher training and training for when service agreements end, and warns that a lack of training can lead to improper operation or nonfunctional plants.

On large ULTRAOX plants, installation, initial start-up and training of personnel are supervised by Ultra Controlo factory technicians, according to the ULTRAOX SC and ULTRAOX ST datasheets. For the operator's routine, see what daily checks a PSA plant operator does.