Rajasthan alleges ventilators received from Centre under PM-CARES are 'faulty'

Vaibhav Galriya, the state's Secretary of Medical Education department, had written a letter to the Centre on Tuesday asking that the "issue be resolved."

He said the letter was sent to the Union Health Ministry after taking feedback from several medical colleges across the state.

The matter was first discussed in a COVID-19 review meeting chaired by Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Monday.

In the meeting, Dr. Lakhan Poswal, the Principal of Ravindra Nath Tagore Medical College in Udaipur, stated that they had received 85 ventilators but they are defective.

"The ventilators run for 1-2 hours and then they stop working," he said in the meeting.

The state received 1,138 ventilators under PM CARES, which account for almost 60% of the total ventilators in the state.

Galriya told CM Gehlot in the meeting that all the ventilators have a problem of "pressure drop."

"When we put someone on a ventilator, it is important to have a sustained pressure, as it becomes the difference between life and death. So this feedback is coming from all over, that there is a pressure drop problem (sic)," he had said.

Dr. SS Rathore, the Principal and Controller of the Sardar Patel Medical College and Prince Bijay Singh Memorial Hospital in Bikaner, said that the ventilators had been upgraded but were not put to use after that as the number of cases decreased.

Galriya, however, claimed that even the update of software in the ventilators did not yield results.

Just last month, the Rajasthan government and the Centre had gotten involved in a war-of-words over the issue of vaccine supply in the state.

The state government had alleged an acute shortage of vaccine stocks and even stopped vaccinations at some state-run facilities in several districts.

However, the Union Health Ministry had denied those allegations at the time.