Ventilators to fight Covid-19 in Chandigarh had glaring faults: Reports

Naina Mishra
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 9

At a time when city residents were on roads scrambling for ventilator beds and many patients died for want of these in hospitals during the second wave, the Central Government provided “low quality ventilators” to fight Covid-19. These ventilators had “substandard features” due to which tertiary care hospitals in the city were afraid to use these on critically ill patients and reported back to the Centre.

What hospitals in the city said

The PGI has even advised the manufacturer, Jyoti Dhaman III, to reconsider these ventilators for use on critically ill patients due to safety concerns. Similarly, the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, stated in its report that these ventilators could not be used in “Covid ICUs”.

The ventilators provided by the Centre under the much-celebrated PM CARES Fund on a fast-track basis to deal with the pandemic are not fit for “critically ill patients”, reports on the quality of ventilators prepared by Chandigarh-based government hospitals, which were accessed by The Tribune under the RTI, reveal.

The PGI has even advised the manufacturer, Jyoti Dhaman III, to reconsider these ventilators for use on critically ill patients due to safety concerns. Similarly, the Government Medical College and Hospital, Sector 32, stated in its report that these ventilators could not be used in “Covid ICUs”.

The PGI had constituted a committee comprising senior faculty members from the Department of Anaesthesia and Pulmonary Medicine to evaluate the functioning of Dhaman III ventilators received on May 23. The committee checked two ventilators using different modes in adult and paediatric settings. The report was submitted to the Director, Health Services, Chandigarh, on June 11.

The PGI report mentioned clearly that “the committee felt that the ventilator may not be suitable for ventilating critically ill patients with abnormal pulmonary mechanics in its current form and advised the company to look into these issues before it was allowed to be used on patients due to safety concerns.”

The reports list the technical issues found upon evaluating the quality of ventilators such as the set respiratory rate could not be achieved for paediatric patients and persistent leak of 10 to 20 per cent was observed with adult settings.

The ventilator was not able to deliver the set tidal volume in the VCV mode (this mode is used for patients who are unable to initiate a breath) for adult and paediatric settings. Besides, the tidal volume (volume of air moved into and out of the lungs during each ventilation cycle) could not be set less than 8ml/kg for paediatric patients.

On June 11, the Department of Anaesthesia at the GMCH also wrote to the Principal-Director regarding Dhaman ventilators provided by the Centre.

The letter reads, “We wish to inform you that 10 ventilators by the name of Jyoti Dhaman III were received from the GoI and were installed in different Covid ICUs at the GMCH. Since the installation and subsequent use, some observations have been made…”

The report pointed out that there was a high variability of delivered tidal volume and a persistent leak had been observed during its functioning on adult patients.

The report further pointed out that during their functioning at the GMCH, five ventilators required repair by service engineers, which happened in a very short span of time.

“In light of these issues and more frequent requirement of repair, these ventilators may not be suitable for use in Covid ICUs,” read the report