Ventilator ‘shortage’ at PGIMER, Chandigarh
Ventilator ‘shortage’ at PGIMER, Chandigarh, Patients gasp for air Region’s most prominent hospital, the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), has a severe shortage of ventilators. About 39 out of 236 ventilators across PGIMER are not working, data reveals. Even the emergency, has 11 non-functional ventilators. Seven are not working in the main ICU, nine in neonatal surgical ICU and five in respiratory ICU. Most are obsolete. Manju Wadwalkar, public relations officer, PGIMER, says, “These machines have outgrown their lives and process to buy new machines is on. “It has been four days since I have been pumping oxygen to keep my father alive. My uncles help out for a few hours, we have to keep pumping oxygen continuously,” said a 16-year-old boy at the ATC whose father is an accident victim. The patient needs to be put immediately on a ventilator, a machine designed to automatically pump air in and out of the lungs to assist those with breathing problems. “Doctors say no ventilators are available,” says the youngster. “There are a few ventilators at the ATC ICU, but at any given moment, there are at least 15 patients in urgent need of one. Hence, they have to keep waiting, depending on their attendants to keep them alive with ambu bags,” said a resident doctor. “The issue is not about the shortage of ventilators. The problem is that adequate critical care facilities are not available. There’s no money or manpower,” said a senior doctor. He said that it takes around Rs 1 crore to set up an ICU. “While private hospitals charge patients anything from Rs 25,000 to Rs 3 lakh per day, the costs at PGIMER just come to a few hundred.” The city’s oldest government hospital, Government Multi Specialty Hospital (GMSH-16), does not have a single ventilator. The condition is no better at GMCH-32, which has only 27 ventilators. -PTC News
