165 ventilators supplied to SMHS Srinagar under the PM CARES fund were found defective either during tests or when operated with patients and deemed “unfit for critical care” on trial runs.
The information has been revealed by an RTI filed by a Jammu-based activist Balvinder Singh.
In the RTI reply, the hospital’s Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine listed the technical problems which make the machines unfit for use for critical care management.
According to the reply received to the 15 questions posted by Singh, most of the devices were unable to meet the conditions required to “support patient-care management” and that they would “stop automatically”, putting “patients at risk”, the news portal reported.
‘The Wire’ quoted Singh as saying that he was prompted to file his RTI application after he found from conversations with doctors that “a large number of the supplied ventilators were not up to the mark and were not generating the required tidal volume”.
As per the news report, 37 ventilators were supplied by Bharat Ventilators, 125 by the Jyoti CNC Automation Ltd, and three by AgVa Ventilators.
It says the total cost of the 165 defective units amounts to Rs 304.4 crore.
As per the news report, 37 ventilators were supplied by Bharat Ventilators, 125 by the Jyoti CNC Automation Ltd, and three by AgVa Ventilators.
The Anesthesiology department member wrote that the department received 37 units made by Bharat Ventilators, from the Medical Superintendent of the SMHS Hospital, and that GMC staff set about testing them.
The three units from AgVa ventilators were installed at SMHS Hospital but they were typified by non-functional displays or problems with generating a sufficient tidal volume, the news report quotes reply to RTI queries as saying.
As per the news report, Singh has now written to the Chief Justice of the Jammu and Kashmir High Court requesting “serious cognisance of the ‘defective ventilators’ supplied to J&K UT through PM CARES Fund.”