Won't allow experiments with glitched ventilators

Aurangabad /Amritsar: In a significant ruling the Bombay High Court has said that it will be the responsibility of the Centre in case any faulty ventilators supplied by a Gujarat-based company through the PMCares Fund, cause deaths of Covid-19 patients.

In its verdict on Wednesday, a Division Bench comprising Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice B.U. Debadwar said that they would "not permit experimentation of ventilators which have undergone major repairs in treating the patients, since this would be causing a risk/health hazard to the patients, and unfortunately, the use of such ventilators may cause loss of life, which must be averted".

After a submission by the Additional Solicitor-General of India Anil Singh, that a team expert doctors from New Delhi - one each from Ram Manohar Lohiya Hospital and Safdarjung Hospital - would visit the Government Medical College & Hospital, Aurangabad (GMCH) today to inspect the defective ventilators, the court has posted the matter for further hearing on June 7.

The matter pertains to 150 ventilators provided to the GMCH in April under the PM Care Fund which were supplied by Rajkot-based Jyoti CNC, of which around 133 were found to be defective or malfunctional.

A GMCH committee had submitted a report on the ventilators which suffered continuous breakdowns even after repairs, and hence the machines were not being used as a precautionary measure with the Maharashtra Congress Spokesperson Sachin Sawant raising the issue in a big way.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Badal on Thursday demanded a high court monitored probe into the manner in which the Congress government in Punjab was playing with the people's lives by creating an artificial shortage of vaccines by selling vaccine doses at a hefty profit to private hospitals.

The SAD president told the media here that a case should be registered against Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu for diverting vaccines meant for the common man to private institutions even as he averred that the issue had the makings of a major scam.