Ventilators supplied under PM Cares Fund develop snags within hours at Punjab hospitals

A sizeable number of ventilators provided to Punjab under the PM Cares Fund last year have not been in use after they developed snags within a couple of hours of installation.71 out of 80 ventilators supplied to Guru Gobind Singh Medical College and Hospital in Faridkot have reportedly been found faulty. These ventilators were provided to Punjab under the PM-Cares Fund by AgVa Healthcare.

Medical college doctors have said these ventilators are non-functional and conked off within 1-2 hours of use. Anaesthetists have said that these ventilators sent by the Centre cannot be trusted as the machines abruptly stopped working while in use.The quality of the ventilators is significantly inferior. These machines are constantly hit by snags. So we cannot use these for patients until we have a trusted repair mechanism in place,” said Dr Raj Bahadur, Vice-Chancellor of Baba Farid University of Health Sciences, Faridkot.