Life-saving ventilators for Covid-19 patients are now being embedded with Global Positioning System (GPS) chips to ensure they are not misused or diverted and their movement is tracked on a real-time basis.
The Union Health Ministry has created a dashboard for tracking the real-time status of the indigenously-manufactured ventilators being dispatched, delivered and installed for monitoring and feedback, said Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan.
“We can track the location of each of these devices as each ventilator is geo-tagged. We will get to know in real-time if a ventilator is changing location,” he said.
On the issue of giving nod for export of ventilators, the official said that just about 0.27 per cent of total active Covid-19 cases are on a ventilator across the country. “At any given time, not more than 1 per cent of patients are sick enough to need ventilator support,” said Bhushan.
The Government has set up a high-powered committee to address issues and encourage the domestic industry to manufacture ventilators and ramp up their production.
Based on expert projections in March, the Health Ministry decided to procure about 60,000 ventilators for Covid-19 patients. About 18,000 ventilators have been so far supplied to states, central government hospitals, and Defence Research Development Organisation facilities, said the senior official.
They have been installed in at least 700 hospitals across the country. Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) rolled out the first locally-made ventilator on May 30.
Bhushan said about 96 per cent of the 60,000 ventilators being procured are indigenous and most of them have been sponsored by the PM CARES Fund established to fight the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The Make in India [indigenous] ventilators have a share of more than 96 per cent% by volume and more than 90 per cent% by value.”
The ministry’s technical expert committee has come up with minimum essential specifications for the basic ventilators manufactured in India. All the procurements are made based on the committee’s recommendations.
Public sector BEL has manufactured 30,000 ventilators and Andhra Med-Tech Zone 13,500. The prices of locally-made ventilators range between Rs 1.5 and Rs 4 lakh per unit. Imported ventilators cost between Rs 10 and 20 lakh.