SRINAGAR: Ventilators supplied under the PM CARES Fund to the SMHS hospital in Srinagar were found defective, faulty and not fit to support patient care, according to an RTI response.
The Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine had received 37 ventilators which were put in trial, the hospital said, responding to the query filed by RTI activist Balvinder Singh.
“All these ventilators were returned to Medical Superintendent SMHS hospital due to compressor/heat up problems, which resulted in sudden shutdown of these ventilators. These ventilators do not support the patient care management,” the department head said.
Three Agva ventilators were non-functional because of problems such as display not working properly and problems in generating tidal volume, the response said. Similarly, two DHAMAN-III ventilators were put on trial at the Srinagar hospital.
“After a trial run, it was found that the tidal volume was not generated. Besides, the required flow rate could not be delivered to the patients and, hence, these are not feasible for patient care. These ventilators stop automatically, putting patients at risk.”
Tidal volume is the amount of air that moves in or out of the human lungs with each respiratory cycle. Both Agva and DHAMAN-III are indigenous products.
Singh said he had filed a similar RTI at GMC Jammu to know the fate of ventilators supplied under the PM CARES fund but officials didn’t provide exact details.
“GMC Jammu has shown that only 13 ventilators out of 179 are defective and not working.”
The Jammu-based RTI activist urged the J&K Chief Justice to order the chief secretary for constituting a panel of experts to inspect all such ventilators supplied under the PM CARES fund in the Union Territory.