Yikes!

According to Randall Hylton, president of Home Medical Systems in Yukon, Okla., whose business makes oxygen storage containers, anything providers can do to focus more attention on oxygen safety for their patients is a plus.

“For years I was a home health technician, visiting people’s homes setting up and delivering all sorts of medical equipment and working for a variety of DMEs, from very small mom-and-pops to large, multi-state operations. The one thing that was consistent,” says Hylton, “was how oxygen cylinders were — and are — currently being stored in the home.”

And, he adds, in too many cases that storage picture isn’t a pretty one.

He delivered tanks to one 63-year-old male patient who had as many as 32 E tanks “all standing like little soldiers” in his garage so he could take extras with him when he went to visit his girlfriend. Hylton says another kept six small M6 cylinders in a Coleman ice chest in the back of his pickup truck “so they wouldn’t roll around too much as I drive,” the patient explained.

With long power outages fresh in oxygen users’ minds after the recent Gulf Coast hurricanes, Hylton says, patients are asking for extra cylinders. And even though providers educate users and caregivers on proper equipment use and storage, the reality is that it doesn’t always happen. “These cylinders are being stored in any way the patient or family can find to store them — under beds or couches, in closets, lying or even stacked on their sides,” Hylton says.

These photos, taken on some of Hylton’s home visits, make his point only too well. Hylton reminds that oxygen cylinders should be stored in a secure position based on accepted safety standards and should not be allowed to fall or tip over. The area also should be well ventilated.