90% Of Ventilators Provided To Punjab Under PM Cares Fund Are Faulty

Followed by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's complaint to the Centre about the faulty ventilators that were provided to the state under the PM Cares Fund, now, Punjab has also complained about them.

Most of the 320 ventilators provided by the Centre to the state are non-functional. More than 280 of these are faulty and gathering dust in storerooms of three medical colleges of the state, reported The Tribune.

Seventy-one of the 80 ventilators at the Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital (GGSMCH) at Faridkot received from the PM Cares Fund are non-functional.

The anaesthetists and intensive care doctors at the hospital said that they did not trust the ventilators provided under the Fund as they barely managed to function for two to three hours. And of the 109 ventilators at the Government Medical College in Amritsar, only 12 are in working condition. Government Medical College in Patiala received 98 ventilators. Though 48 of these devices have been fixed, anaesthetists are reluctant to use them.

Dr Bahadur, who is also the vice-chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, a consistent college of GGSMCH, said that the ventilators arrived at the Government Medical Colleges at Amritsar, Patiala and Faridkot in different batches on different dates and they were 320 in total.

"Over 90 per cent of them are faulty due to which doctors didn't use the entire lot. We can't take chances.," he said. A ventilator provides oxygen at varying levels. The oxygen requirement for every patient is different.

On Thursday, May 12, the Centre reacted to these reports and blamed the manufactures for the glitches, who have not provided good after-sales support.

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