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Mohali admn hands over eight ventilators to two private hospitals
The action comes a day after Hindustan Times reported that the ventilators were lying unused at civil hospital for the last eight months
A day after Hindustan Times reported that eight ventilators were lying unused at the civil hospital in Phase 6, the health department handed them over to two private hospitals.
Four units were given to Max Hospital in Phase 6 and the other four to Fortis Hospital in Phase 8.
Mohali civil surgeon Dr Adarshpal Kaur said, “We have handed over the ventilators to private hospitals to use during Covid period. Once this is over, they will hand them back to us.”
Member of parliament Manish Tewari said, “I took up the issue (after it was reported) with the deputy commissioner of Mohali and told him to either hand them (the ventilators) over to private hospitals in Mohali or to PGIMER in Chandigarh.”
DC Girish Dayalan said that the ventilators were received under PM CARES, but were not used due to technical issues: “These ventilators were to be used in the Mohali Medical College; the process of human resource recruitment and infrastructure creation is on.”
Abhijit Singh, zonal director of Fortis Hospital said the hospital will administer Covid vaccine at the hospital tomorrow the moment supplies were made available by the authorities.
HT had reported how at a time when a Covid patient had died while waiting for an ICU bed at a private hospital in Mohali on Wednesday, eight ventilators were lying unused at the civil hospital for the last eight months in the absence of infrastructure and/or staff to operate them.
The district has around 30 private hospitals with 256 ICU beds. None of the nine government facilities offers one, even as the Mohali assembly constituency is represented by the Punjab health minister.
The civil surgeon said that the civil hospital needed permanent anaesthetic personnel besides other facilities, for which a request had been submitted with the health department.
