Ministry ready to repair faulty ventilators: Fawad
ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Science and Technology has offered to repair out-of-order ventilators in government and private hospitals and clinics free of charge, provided these healthcare centres promise that they would provide the repaired equipment to coronavirus patients free of cost as the country is witnessing a medical emergency.
“Not only will our teams of engineers help to make the ventilators functional again, they will also train the hospital staff to operate the ventilators and related medical equipment,” Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry announced on Friday in a video message.
The minister said that more than 1,000 ventilators were earlier out of order or broken or the hospitals and clinics concerned lacked the expertise to operate them. In the message, Mr Chaudhry appreciated the efforts by young engineers who had come forward in a large number to assist the government in making the ventilators operational again.
“Pakistan did not manufacture ventilators or testing kits in the past, but in just a few weeks, we will be able to start manufacturing ventilators and testing kits locally thanks to efforts of our young engineers. The Drug Regulatory Authority of Pakistan has completed legal procedures on a war footing and we are in the final stage of licensing these products,” Mr Chaudhry said.
The minister said that the Covid-19 pandemic had presented a challenge to manufacture the medical equipment locally and “our engineers accepted that challenge and they would start manufacturing these items shortly”.
Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2020