191 ventilators lie unused in HP
At least 191 medical ventilators received from the Centre during the first Covid-19 wave last year under the PM Cares Fund are lying unused in Himachal Pradesh due to the lack of trained staff to operate them besides technical reasons.
Till last year, the hill state had only 52 ventilators in its health institutions, including medical colleges. In June last year, the state received 574 ventilators from Chennai, including 178 portable ones of which 405 are functional. “All ventilators received from the Centre were distributed to the hospitals,” said Ramesh Chand, the deputy director, health, who is the nodal officer for procurement.
“We have received ample PPE kits and masks from the Centre,” he says.
The ventilators were distributed to different hospitals for installation. Some hospitals installed them, anticipating the requirement, while a majority of them, particularly the district and zonal hospitals, remained reluctant to install them. The health department has now hired a private company to install the ventilators.
A majority of the 191 ventilators are lying unused for want of the medical gas pipeline system and other accessories needed to operate them. Thirty ventilators were given to Indira Gandhi Medical College and Hospital in Shimla; 19 to Deen Dayal Upadhyay Hospital, Shimla; and 10 to Kamla Nehru Hospital. Five ventilators each were given to hospitals in Rohru and Rampur.
Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College, Tanda, got 42 ventilators and 15 went to Jawahar Lal Nehru Medical College, Chamba.
Ten ventilators were given to hospitals in Palampur, but they were not installed and five were dispatched to the hospital in Nurpur, while 15 ventilators were given to the zonal hospital in Dharamshala. The ventilators given to the Palampur hospitals were later shifted to Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College, Tanda, as the hospitals did not have doctors who could operate them.
While the stock is lying unused, high-load health institutions, such as Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Tanda, and Lal Bahadur Shastri Government Medical College, Nerchowk, are facing shortage of ventilators. RPGMC, Tanda, has 72 ICU beds and all of them are occupied as on May 16. Similarly, LBSGMC has also exhausted its 50-ICU bed facility. Indira Gandhi Medical College, Shimla, has 45 ventilator beds of which 38 are occupied.