The 25 ventilators received nine months ago under PM CARES Fund finally became operational on Monday at the Darbhanga Medical College and Hospital (DMCH), the largest government hospital in north Bihar.
Hospital officials have maintained that the installation was delayed due to paucity of oxygen supply and other technical issues. While the hospital has been in the news for alleged poor state of affairs, the ventilators provided under the PM CARES fund too have been questioned by several states over their quality. The Centre, however, has blamed lack of technical knowhow as the chief reason for problems faced by the states. DMCH medical superintendent Mani Bhushan Sharma too was on record having accepted a lack of manpower to handle ventilators.
Darbhanga district magistrate (DM) Thiyagarajan SM, himself a doctor, said the oxygen cylinder manifold system from the old surgical wing was shifted to Covid care wing, which also has a 25-bed ICU, after completion of necessary civil works.
тАЬEarlier, doctors had complained that the consumption of oxygen in the ventilators was high. The complaint has been redressed,тАЭ said DMCH superintendent Dr Manibhushan Sharma.
He said two patients have now been placed on the ventilators received from PM CARES Fund.
Three ventilator technicians, one biomedical engineer, four paramedics and three technicians to run the new manifold oxygen plant have been roped in by DMCH to run the new ICU efficiently, Sharma said.
The total number of ventilators at the DMCH has now gone up to 32.
On Monday, 2,844 people were reported to have tested positive for Covid-19 infection in the last 24 hours, raising the stateтАЩs tally to over 692,000 cases. The disease also claimed 93 more lives in Bihar raising the death toll to 4,642.
