On January 16, Japan Industrial and Medical Gases Association (JIMGA) sent an urgent notification to the members of its Homecare O2 Working Group to call for spreading precautions to handle flammables carefully in home oxygen therapy (HOT) among all users and medical institutes concerned.

The home oxygen therapy which absorbs highly-concentrated oxygen may become a remote cause of fire by wrong handling of flammables. According to JIMGA’s statistics of the fatal incidents and serious injuries in HOT after 2003, there were 52 fire accidents killing 50 HOT patients until October 2014.
　
Most of the accidents were caused by smoking during inhalation of oxygen or careless handling of cigarette, followed by short-circuit to stoves or electric carpet and incense sticks. In reference to the accidents which took place during the recent 2014 calendar year, there were seven fatal accidents. Although some full-out awareness campaigns have been carried out by the industry, the fact is that no decrease in the number of accident has been recognized. Responding to the fact, JIMGA sent a notification letter dated January 16 to all 70 member companies of its Homecare O2 Working Group. It is the first case for JIMGA to inform in such a style as urgent notification though information has mainly been dispatched through lecture presentations at the Japanese Respiratory Society or the Japan Society for Respiratory Care and Rehabilitation as well as through the home page or newsletter of JIMGA.

In the notification letter it was requested to promote thorough awareness of medical institutes or patients, for careful handling of flammables in the HOT, with such a warning as “No Smoking” or “No Flammable within Two Meters around Oxygen Concentrator.” In addition, it is recommended to take advantage of the motivational leaflet issued by MHLW which can be downloaded from JIMGA’s home page.

Precautions to medical institutes were implemented until February 10, requiring to report results to JIMGA. As of the publication of this issue JIMGA is ready for receiving any voluntary report from Member companies.

JIMGA says, “We are planning to inform the contents of each report from time to time also to MHLW. More than anything, we would like to make it well known that HOT is a safe way of therapy so long as it is properly used”.