BackCovid triggers critical healthcare infra boost
India’s current health infrastructure is inadequate to achieve universal health coverage in the country
PremiumNEW DELHI : The covid-19 pandemic has triggered an attempt to try and fast-track what India has been unable to achieve in the last 70 years—building an extensive critical care infrastructure equipped with enough ventilators. According to the government’s own admission, on 1 May there were only 19,398 ventilators in the public sector.
A study by the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy (CDDEP), a public health research organization, in April, shows that India had 47,481 ventilators in the public and private sector.
Both numbers fall way below the health ministry’s projection last month of the number of ventilators that will be needed by June—75,000. This urgent need has sparked deliberations to procure and manufacture ventilators.
As a result, orders for 60,884 ventilators were placed by HLL Lifecare Ltd, a public sector unit under the health ministry which acts as the central procurement agency. Bulk of the orders were with domestic manufacturers; only 1,000 are slated for imports.
The Centre said that as part of its Make in India initiative, it has identified local manufacturers and guided them about meeting specifications, finalizing training and other protocols, creating new supply chains, and helping them in logistics issues with suppliers and state governments.
Major domestic manufacturers with whom orders have been placed were Bharat Electronics Ltd (in collaboration with Skanray), AgVa (in collaboration with M/s Maruti Suzuki Limited) and AMTZ (AP Medtech Zone).
Ventilators can be also used for patients of pneumonia, which killed over 127,000 under-five children in 2018, according to UNICEF.
To be sure just procuring ventilators will not do —India will need enough trained health workers to use them properly. “50,000 ventilators have been procured but a core challenge is on having the necessary expertise to maintain and use them to save lives. Early testing and admission to care have a greater impact on patient survival than just the availability of ventilators. So, we need to be working on multiple fronts to tackle this epidemic," said Dr Ramanan Laxminarayan, director CDDEP.
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