'Of 82 ventilators received at Faridkot hospital under PM Cares Fund, 62 not in working condition', claims official

A day after AAP MLA Kultar Singh Sandhwan posted a picture stating that ventilators were lying unsued at Faridkot's Guru Gobind Singh Medical College (GGSMC) and Hospital, Baba Farid University of Health Sciences Vice-Chancellor Raj Bahadur on Wednesday said that the majority of the ventilators received from the Centre under the PM Cares Fund are not in a working condition.

He stated that 82 ventilators were received by the hospital out of which 62 were not in working condition since the beginning, adding that they were 'not of good quality'. He informed that the hospital only has 42 ventilators in working condition.

Guru Gobind Singh Medical College (GGSMC) and Hospital comes under the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences.

Speaking to ANI, the Vice-Chancellor said, "We were given 82 ventilators under PM Cares Fund. Out of these 82 ventilators, 62 were not in working condition since the beginning as these are not of good quality. Today, we have only 42 ventilators in working condition."

Raj Bahadur stated that some ventilators were not working when they were received and many became non-functional after some days.

"We have written to the administration and they shall be repaired. We have also requested the Punjab government to provide us additional 10 ventilators," he added.

On Tuesday the AAP MLA had tweeted a picture of the ventilators and said, "These are the ventilators from PM Cares Fund lying unused in GGSMC Faridkot. Please make them work for the needy COVID-19 patients. I shall be obliged and appreciate."Speaking to ANI, the AAP MLA said, "The whole country is fighting with Corona, there are constant deaths and around 60 to 70 ventilators in the Faridkot Medical Hospital are lying dysfunctional but the administration is not paying attention towards them and is not getting them repaired or replaced. Had they been functional, many precious lives would have been saved."

This comes amid rising cases of COVID-19 in the state. Punjab on Tuesday registered yet another record high number of COVID-19 deaths at 217, pushing the toll to 10,918, according to the state health bulletin.

The state also recorded 8,668 new positive cases and 7,324 recoveries on Tuesday.

( With inputs from ANI )

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