This story is from May 10, 2021

Telangana: PM Cares ventilators lying idle for want of repairs, lack of staff

A shipment of ventilators allocated to Telangana under the PM Cares fund are lying unused across medical colleges and hospitals for various reasons. For instance, at Mahabubnagar Government Hospital, 30 ventilators are lying unused due to a lack of speciality staff who can operate them.
Telangana: PM Cares ventilators lying idle for want of repairs, lack of staff
Ventilators at a Mahabubnagar government hospital lying idle
HYDERABAD: A shipment of ventilators allocated to Telangana under the PM Cares fund are lying unused across medical colleges and hospitals for various reasons. For instance, at Mahabubnagar Government Hospital, 30 ventilators are lying unused due to a lack of speciality staff who can operate them.
Similar is the case at Nizamabad Medical College where 20 ventilators are unused as the oxygen plant does not have supportive oxygen for the ventilators’ functioning.
“These ventilators can at least be reshuffled to hospitals where there is a need and adequate infrastructure. Less recruitments, no funds with superintendents for small repairs, no biomedical engineering recruitments and negligence by higher authorities is leading to loss of lives,” said a source from the hospital. In fact, some ventilators supplied are of poor quality, said doctors.
“In many cases either manpower is not available, oxygen capacity is not there or there is need for small repairs — either the sensor is not working or the monitor is not working. We have represented these issues many times to the government but they were not taken up. There is a need to have a separate biomedical engineering wing which can take up repairs and regular maintenance as ventilators and other equipment also remain idle many times for want of minor repairs. Like Tamil Nadu where the task was assigned to the Anna University’s biomedical engineering department, we can do it here at Osmania University’s medical engineering department,” said Dr Mahesh Dr Mahesh Kumar, president, Healthcare Reforms Doctors Association (HRDA).
At the Gandhi Hospital too a few ventilators are lying unused for want of minor repairs reportedly. While the hospital denied that PM Cares ventilators were lying idle, Dr Sashidhar Reddy, president Junior Doctors Association (JUDA) Gandhi unit said, “Although we had put most of ventilators to use at Gandhi, a few are not of good quality. We are facing a lot of issues with them as they don’t work most of the time. Few which are not working are kept aside.”
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