Hospitals in Karnataka complain of issues with PM Cares ventilators

At a review meeting held recently on the state’s preparedness for Covid treatment, it was revealed that the state, in all, has 2,871 ventilators.

However, functioning issues dog ventilators given under PM Cares, even seven months after they were distributed to various hospitals in the state during the second wave. The hospitals have said the problems of them not working beyond eight hours to ten hours at a stretch still persist.

However, ventilators bought from companies abroad by the hospitals themselves, in contrast, are working fine with no oxygenation problems, heating problems or breakdown problems. The hospitals said that during the peak of the second Covid wave, the problem was with increased load and the availability of technicians to fix the machines.

Due to the high demand, personnel were not able to tend to the equipment days on end leaving the patients in the lurch.

M S Ramaiah Memorial Hospital Associate Dean Dr Harish K said, “Even now, after eight to ten hours of continuous usage, the output of these 40 PM Cares ventilators is sub-optimal. They don’t provide adequate oxygenation and doesn’t ventilate as expected. The state has been apprised about it but there’s been no replacement. We are currently using 10 of our own ventilators from German and Swiss companies. They work at a stretch even for days together.”

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Dr Vivek G, Consultant Interventional Pulmonologist, Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospital, said, “We have 20 PM Cares ventilators. When we had an increased case burden, engineers couldn’t come and repair them. As of now, services are available. But once the caseload increases, I don’t know how they will perform. It is not on par with ventilators from German companies.”

“We cannot run it continuously for eight to 12 hours as it will heat up and break down. We will use 16 of our ventilators and alternate every 12 hours. During the last Covid wave, PM Cares engineers did not come to rectify for two weeks after the ventilators broke down. We faced a lot of problems last time. We don’t know what will happen this wave,” he said.

Dr Ranganath V, District Health Officer, Chitradurga, said 20 out of the 64 ventilators in the district were of PM Cares and that they had faced the same issues. “This is the problem generally with all PM Cares ventilators, especially in the periphery,” he said.

In the Bidar, more than 50% of the ventilators were that of PM Cares. DHO Dr VG Reddy said, “Out of 151 ventilators, 73 are from PM Cares, which had issues with pressure. We got them repaired. The rest are of two German companies.”

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