Chandigarh seeks 20 ventilators 'discarded' by PGI

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 9

The UT Administration has sought 20 ventilators received under the PM CARES fund, which were discarded by the PGI on finding these ‘unfit’ for patients.

UT Health Secretary Yashpal Garg said, “All the ventilators received under the PM CARES fund have been installed at the government hospitals in the UT. However, there were some technically unfit ventilators with the PGI and the GMCH, Sector 32. The issue was taken up with the Centre and a team had visited to repair faulty ventilators at the GMCH. There are still 20 ventilators with the PGI that have not been put to use till date. We have asked the PGI to give us those ventilators so that we can get them repaired and install them in our hospitals.”

The PGI authorities were asked to submit a report of the status of ventilators to the Director, Health Services (DHS), Chandigarh, regarding the same. Earlier, the PGI had constituted a committee comprising senior faculty members from the Department of Anaesthesia and Pulmonary Medicine to evaluate the functioning of ventilators received on May 23. The committee had checked two ventilators using different modes in adult and paediatric settings. The report was submitted to the DHS on June 11.

The PGI report stated that the machines may not be suitable for ventilating critically ill patients with abnormal pulmonary mechanics in its current form. The company was advised to look into these issues before these are used on patients in view of safety concerns.

The reports had listed out the technical issues found upon evaluating the quality of ventilators such as the set respiratory rate could not be achieved for paediatric patients and persistent leak of 10 to 20 per cent was observed with adult settings.

PGI Director Dr Surjit Singh said, “The committee did not find these ventilators fit for patients. However, the UT Administration may take these from us if they want to install in their hospital settings.”

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