RIC develops stopgap measure to bridge ventilator shortage

An alteration helps accommodate multiple patients on a single machine

RAWALPINDI: When the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic first started to spread in Pakistan, one question on the minds of medical authorities, practitioners and disaster managers was whether the 2,200 (effectively 1,500) ventilators in the country will be enough to cater to patients of the respiratory disease if it infects a large number of people.

As the government tries to complete an ambitious project to increase the number of ventilators in the country to 10,000 in a matter of weeks, some doctors have discovered a stopgap measure that can stretch the capacity for accommodating patients on ventilators through a small alteration.

Biomedical technicians at the Rawalpindi Institute for Cardiology (RIC) have come up with a way to modify existing artificial breathers to accommodate as many as four patients on a single device simultaneously.

As part of its research and development efforts, the RIC’s Biomedical Laboratory had set up test centre within the institute to test various medical solutions. With coronavirus patients increasing rapidly in the country, technicians there worked on whether they could maximise the output of these machines. The technicians experimented with a reconfiguration of ventilators and tested to see if it works or not.

To their joy, it did.

RIC Executive Director (ED) Dr Azhar Mahmood Kayani explained that the ventilators are modified by installing a special circuit inside it.

“After this, the machines become ready to serve up to seven patients at a time with full efficiency,” he said, adding, “If we go beyond this figure, it might impact its efficiency.”

The entire modification project, he said, is done locally and costs just Rs1,500. By comparison, each new ventilator costs more than Rs1.7 million ($10,000).

However, like every other device, it has some limitations, Dr Kayani explained.

He offered other health facilities in the country to use this technology in their ventilators to increase their capacity amidst a deluge of patients.

“Our technicians are ready to go wherever they are called or even provide guidance over the telephone to whoever needs it,” he added.

This technology can even be used under normal circumstances and save millions of rupees of public money used to import these life-saving machines.

Noting that there were simply insufficient ventilators to deal with the influx of Covid-19 patients apart from regular patients who require ventilators, Dr Kayani suggested that other healthcare facilities in the country use this method until the government arranges additional ventilators.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th, 2020.