Ventilators received from foreign nations are lying unused
As many as 15 ventilators that Bhiwani’s Chaudhary Bansilal Government Hospital received from foreign countries through donation in the last three weeks are not functioning, said health officials.
Dr Ved Pal, head of anesthesia at the hospital, said these ventilators are non-functional due to technical snag.
“We had shifted some patients on these ventilators but they could not get proper oxygen support. We appraised the higher authorities about the same and a biomedical engineer is checking the technical snags in these ventilators,” the doctor added.
An administrative official, pleading anonymity, said these ventilators are manufactured by a Chinese company and were sent to Bansilal hospital three weeks ago.Flagging the issue, senior Congress leader and Tosham legislator Kiran Choudhry said the demand of ventilator beds have increased a lot in the second wave and ventilators sent to the hospital are lying vacant.
“The hospital lacks trained staff to operate these ventilators. Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar had promised the district residents of providing more ventilators and he provided them but they have developed a snag,” the Tosham MLA added.
“This is the only government hospital in Bhiwani which has proper ventilator facilities and only eight ventilators are functioning,” she added.
A government doctor posted at the hospital said doctors of Dadri civil hospital are also referring patients requiring ventilator support to their hospital. “We have appraised the administration and senior health officials about shortage of ventilators and trained staff but to no avail,” the doctor added.
Bhiwani civil surgeon Dr Sapna Gehlot said the hospital has 24 ventilators of which eight are functioning. “We had received 15 ventilators from the Gurugram warehouse, which were sent by foreign countries through donation and these are lying unused because we don’t have an application for installation. Once we get all parts of the ventilators, we will install them,” she added.