All 165 ventilators sent to Srinagar govt hospital defective

All 165 ventilators that were procured with the help of the PM Cares Fund and sent to Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, Srinagar, were found to be defective, RTI activist Balvinder Singh said.

Seeking intervention of the chief justice of the Jammu and Kashmir high court, Singh said, “While officials of the health department from Jammu division did not give the exact details in their RTI query, Government Medical College Srinagar, especially the head of anaesthesiology and critical care furnished clear information with regard to the defective ventilators of the three different brands supplied to them under PM CARES.”

“HOD anaesthesiology said in his reply that the department received Bharat ventilators that were put to a trial run. However, all these ventilators were returned to the medical superintendent due to varied malfunctions in compressors and other flaws”, he said.

“Similarly, three Agva ventilators also had some problems such as the display not working, trouble generating tidal volume etc,” said Singh.

“As far as the ventilators of DHAMAN-III were concerned, the HOD stated in the reply that 125 ventilators of this make have been kept at DRDO Hospital, Srinagar. Out of 125 ventilators, two were kept at SMHS Hospital for trial run in order to ascertain their efficacy. They were also found defective and thus were not feasible for patient care,” said the RTI activist.

“Beside 22 Agva ventilators have been kept at DRDO Hospital in Srinagar for trial,” he added.

Singh suspected that the installation of defective ventilators in health institutions of Jammu division could be one of the major reasons for high Covid mortality rate.

“Keeping in view the seriousness of the issue and to save precious lives of the inhabitants of the UT, as there is every apprehension of the third Covid-19 wave, we humbly request the chief justice of the J&K High Court to take serious cognisance of the issue and issue directions to the chief secretary to constitute a committee of experts to examine the functioning of all the ventilators,” he said. Hindustan Times