Reports of poor quality ventilators in Faridkot hospital unfounded: Centre
NEW DELHI : The central government on Thursday said the reports about ventilators supplied to Faridkot’s Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital (GGSMCH) under the PM Cares Fund being of poor quality were unfounded.
The Punjab government on Wednesday had claimed that most of the machines were faulty and not in working condition. “There have been some media reports suggesting that Government of India supplied ventilators (supported by PM CARES) to GGS Medical College and Hospital, Faridkot, are lying unused as a result of technical glitches which have not been resolved due to poor after-sales support by the manufacturers. These reports seem to be unfounded,” the Union health ministry said.
It said 88 of the ventilators were supplied by BEL which informed that the bulk of ventilators supplied to the hospital are not faulty, as are being reported. It said that their engineers have observed that there are problems with the infrastructure in GGSMCH like the non-availability of required pressure in the central oxygen gas pipelines. The hospital authorities are not following the prescribed norms of changing consumables, the government said in a statement.
Union ministry’s claim baseless: BFUHS V-C
Dr Raj Bahadur, vice-chancellor, BFUHS, Faridkot, said the Union health ministry’s claim of improper use of ventilators by the Faridkot medical college is totally baseless.
“Qualified anaesthetists and senior resident doctors are working on these ventilators. They have been using high-end ventilators in ICUS for years. Why only their ventilators are not working,” he asked.
“Some of the ventilators were not working from the first day. The GGSMCH wrote 12 letters to the company in the last six months seeking repair. The firm on Wednesday sent just one engineer who rectified five ventilators. The engineer confirmed that 85 more ventilators are not working,” he added.
Meanwhile, AAP legislator and state kisan wing president Kultar Singh Sandhwan accused the central and state governments of playing politics on faulty ventilators. Sandhwan alleged that CM Amarinder Singh, health minister Balbir Singh Sidhu and medical education minister O P Soni were responsible for the deaths due to non-availability of ventilators and other health services in the state.