Mumbai: Thirty-four ventilators in KEM Hospital and four ventilators in Sion Hospital have been out of order for the past couple of months, according to a response to an RTI query.
According to the director of major civic hospitals, Dr Ramesh Bharmal, the process to fix them has been initiated.
The ventilators at Sion Hospital, one of the three major civic-run hospitals, have been out of service for the past one and a half months because of faulty O2 sensors and compressors.
In KEM Hospital, the Surgical Intensive Care Unit’s ventilators have been non-functional for the past year while the department of neurosurgery’s ventilator has been out of service for the past six months.
Additionally, the medical intensive care unit’s six ventilators have also been dysfunctional for the past one year.
Dr Bharmal said tenders were being floated to purchase new machines.
“We are also in the process of scrapping and buying machines. The companies’ technicians have been informed ab-out malfunctioning O2 sensors and they will be operational soon. The purchase of such sensors is also underway,” he said.
A health official said that the civic authorities have started fixing the ventilators. However, on the condition of anony-mity, a civic engineer stated, “It is hard to maintain the ventilators because of staff crunch and lack of experts to operate them.”
Earlier in August, The Asian Age had reported that seven out of the 83 ventilators at civic-run Nair Hospital were not in working condition. Of them, six had been non-functional for nearly six months while the seventh was shut down in July due to glitches.
An RTI query stated that five ventilators from the Medical Intensive Care Unit were not working since six months as O2 sensors were not functioning. One ventilator from the Intensive Pallia-tive Care Unit was not working due to internal technical problems since June-July, whereas one ventilator in the respiratory rate ward was not working since January due to the compressor.
